Melbourne day 3

Ok ok. I know i really should have written this post ages ago when i actually, you know, was un Melbourne. But better late than never.

I dedicated that day to meeting up with callum and my Dutch friend. They both lived on the beach about a half hour walk from each other, but a good 4 hour walk from me. I didn't really want to waste time or money on public transport so I decided to walk all the way there. It was a good call in the end  because i ended walking through a whole bunch of side streets which were pretty cool
Eventually I reached st. Kilda and met up with Callum and his father. It was good seeing mr. Frew again - he still hasn't lost his grudge against me for a an age of empires game all of us played years ago where I back stabbed him and my other allies to get the win all for myself. Eventually the topic changed from computer games and we resorted to polite small talk. Apparently I act more american than I did 2 years ago.

After taking a trolley to the city we went to the asian beer cafe where we tried Go Ku beer. Just like the tv show it appeared strong but was actually weak and took hours to notice an effect. I hadn't eaten anything all day so I was in the mood for a cheap feed. We waddled on down to an all you can eat Chinese restaurant. Within 5 minutes our table was bombarded with cheap deep friend chinese food. When a waiter approached callum and asked him if he would like more, callum hesitated and the waiter understood and said 'no yet no yet'. Its at that point where my money saving, binge eating, respect lacking instincts kicked in and i grabbed the Waiter and said 'yes yet yes yet. More food more!' Callum will thank me later. The weirdest thing about the restaurant though was that it kept playing weird music. Marvin gaye was on repeat and every 10 minutes they would play happy birthday. I think it was a bug in the software because everyone kept looking around to find the birthday boy/girl with no luck. After the 5th time it played I stood up and clapped at callum making everyone think it was his birthday. He will thank me later. 

To top it off I went to we want to a German pub afterwards to enjoy some wheat beer. A great end to a great trip.... Or at least it would have been if I didn't have to wake up at 3:45 am yo catch my flight and if there want a fire alarm that went off for an hour at 2am. Gurr.

Melbourne day 2

Yesterday was a lot of fun. I started the day by heading to the Fitzroy area in a quest to find the Little creatures brewery. The map I had conveniently cut out well before that area so all I knew was that it was north. The path I took reminded me a whole lot of Frodo travelling through middle earth - except instead of a ring gradually corrupting me, it was as my burning desire for alcohol. Eventually I arrived at the black gate which was the entrance to the brewery. Sadly however, when I stepped into the fiery pits of mt. Doom I realized I had been deceived. It wasn't a brewery but a little creatures diner.  I had a pot of pale ale and stole a free brochure outlining the types of hops and malt they use for their brew - anything that'll give me a competitive advantage with my home brew is worth taking.

I've been pretending all along that I'm a Texan exchange student in Australia. So far I've made a lot friends this way. However I've noticed that I accidentally change my story every time I say it. This really puts me on my toes and I've been adding layer after layer of lies to make up for obvious contradictions. I reckon they might figure out the second I leave Melbourne.

With what was left of the afternoon I went to the markets to see if I could buy some Christmas presents for my family. Sadly however, the markets had very little selection and nothing existed here that I couldn't get in Melbourne.

I also went on a long river walk which turned out to be really cool. Good food, good sun and really friendly people.

I ended up the night by inviting everyone I had met to 'cookie bar'. Its a misleading title because it's not much of a bar, more of an outside beer hall. They also had a pretty large projector which had the potential to play any movie they wanted. Sadly they didn't capitalize on this by playing pacific rim :(. At this point it was just the Irish bloke, 2 Brits from the hostel and myself. After a while though we decided to go to a different bar - 'the Irish tale', you can guess who's idea that was. There we met up with a friend of mine from Texas (Woutijn), two of the dutch girls and a random local who just wanted to be part of the UN meeting.

I know I promised myself I wouldn't be so stingy with money but towels here are like a whole 5 dollars to borrow so I ended up drying myself with a clean shirt of mine.

Melbourne day 1 continued

Melbourne is awesome. The people here are really friendly and social. Most of the people I've met today have been international backpacker's but a few have been genuine melbournians. I ran into a few dutch backpackers on the bus out of the airport who were telling me about their experiences in Australia thus far - I'll be drinking with them tomorrow night for sure. Also while having dinner in a Thai place I met an Irish / Australian bloke who had been living here for quite some time - I'll also be drinking with him tomorrow. The hostel was the most social though because I met so many different people from Europe. One guy who has the bed just below mine has an extremely american accent but is actually from Belgium. While I was drinking with him I tried very hard not to bring up the conversation of beer with him because I knew he would know more. Did you know that monks make beer in Belgium. How badass is that?

In other news I've made it a mission of mine to drink a beer in every pub I n the city. Tomorrow us going to be fun...

Melbourne day 1

I'm currently waiting at the airport for my flight to Melbourne. I've booked my accommodation for 3 nights which means I'll be home on Sunday. Matt Gates was kind enough to drop me off at the airport today which meant I didn't have to catch a super expensive train in. Sadly nothing out of the ordinary has happened worth commenting about - everybody is behaving in that expected ultra independent and successful businessman kind of way.

I plan to meet up with a friend on Friday afternoon. He's a Dutch friend of mine that I made while in Texas. He offered me a place to stay near the beach just a few hours after I booked my 14 bedroom dorm hostel. Its probably for the best that I don't stay in his house though because I kind of want to meet new people which can most easily be done at a hostel.

My excitement for Melbourne is slowly being weighed down by the boring and professional atmosphere of the passengers waiting around me. I kinda wish I was in line longer for the baggage check - but sadly airports have to be efficient. I've noticed one woman who was behind me in the baggage check who was restlessly shuffling to the front of the queue in that 'I've got things to do! Let me through' kind of way - she's now trying to fall asleep in a disturbingly awkward posture just a few seats away from me.

This type of professional impatience ego is something I never want to have. So maybe that is what this trip should be about? Being young wild and free before my soul gets crushed by the weight of a full time job.  Strip clubs here I come!

Explosive performances

Day 442

Despite our best efforts, the cockroaches are winning the war. Myself and a few others banded together to form 'the resistance', but lack of motivation and laziness runs through the ranks too fiercely. In the meanwhile, we've noticed a growing ant population competing for food in the kitchen. This insect civil war might just buy us some time. Rumor has it that a company not too far away has invented a "bug bomb" - a small scale nuclear bomb that would make Hiroshima look like a marshimello fire. If we pool our resources together, we could turn the tide.

In other news, the UNSW e Learning forum YouTube video just got released. This is the video that featured me and 3 other students panelists talk about how Online learning has a part to play in the future of UNSW education. Now before you click on this Hyperlink, I want you to know that I was nervous! There are many scenes of me fidgeting with my thumb ring and watch. There are also many scenes of me absentmindedly staring into the camera like a complete dunce. So please! For my sake, DON'T watch this video with any expectation that I will sound i) intelligent ii) rehearsed or even iii) literate

DO

NOT

WATCH

THIS

VIDEO

WITHOUT

WATCHING

A

VIDEO

OF

YOURSELF

AS

A

4 YEAR OLD

EATING

SPAGHETTI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JL_VerRhD0

Cockroaches, roommates and twins

Day 432.

Cockroaches have taken over the household. Supplies and hygene are at an all time low. We tried spraying the house with "raid", but to no effect. They've already evolved to withstand biological warfare. Also, I'm pretty sure "raid" is just carbonated flavored water. There are so many of them crawling through the kitchen that I can't get a glass of water after midnight anymore without putting shoes on first. A few other brave men and I have taken it upon ourselves to fight back the only way we know how - by using mindless violence. There's a box of tissues by the bench top in the kitchen which has only one purpose - and sadly, it's not for cleaning.

A new roommate moved in today. His name is Harry and he's from England working at the Randwick racecourse as a horse looker afterer. He's pretty cool and super chill. I originally wanted to leave the spot available for a week so that Matt Gates could move in immediately if he wanted to when he came back from China. But splitting 1 weeks rent 5 ways wasn't cool with the other guys so I took a serious stab at the gumtree advertisement. The best part about this arrangement is that Harry has already claimed that he can move out in February if Matt wants to move in.

In other news, I've found my evil genius nemesis at work today. He's pretty much exactly like me, but better in every way imaginable. His name is Gim and he is an Asian mastermind. Here are the some of the ways this guy is exactly like me, but better:
1) He and I were the only undergraduates working for Professor Prusty. Except I took 5 years to graduate and he only took 4.
2) He and I both created online tutorials. Except he created his faster and without coding bugs.
3) I tutored 1 subject last semester. He tutored 3.

It's times like these where I recall back to one of my fathers sayings: "You'll never be the best at anything. But don't worry, because you'll never be the worst either". Thanks Dad.

FuUUuUUuuck I still haven't purchased my beer making kit! Why did I choose the lead up to Christmas as a time to buy my expensive equipment? I think i'll wait till Jan.

Beer

So I went to a party yesterday with the intention of politely (arrogantly) bragging about my new drive to brew my own beer. The first person I happened to sit next to was [This comment has been censored by the Abbot Government. All hail Abbot]. I began with

"Hey man, guess what?"

"whu..?"

"I'M BREWING MY OWN BEER"

"Oh cool man. What type of hops do you plan on using? Are you going to use the standard coopers kit? Or are you going to be creative?"

"Ummm, I don't know yet. I'm still looking for good deals on eBay. I reckon I'll have a batch brewing by next month! You seem to know a little bit about brewing beer. Have you been watching YouTube videos too?"

"Nah man, I've been brewing my own beer for years now. **holds up an unlabeled beer** This is a batch 20."


Before my jaw could hit the floor, another friend of mine, [This comment has been censored by the Abbot Government. All hail Abbot], chimed into the conversation saying:

"Hey guys, d'ya brew your own beer too? The temperature fluctuation has been so bad for my latest batch, eh? I was just telling ____ that I might have to start investing an a isolation chamber"

At that moment [This comment has been censored by the Abbot Government. All hail Abbot] came up to us. He was on the lease for the house and stated talking about how his latest batch hadn't hadn't quite digested all the yeast yet. He then proceeded to walk into the next room and pull about a bunch of full bottles of his home brew.

I suddenly felt ill. I think it was due to all the commercialized unsanitary beer I'd been drinking. I made a few quick goodbyes and left. Since when did brewing your own beer become so mainstream? I wanted to be new and original and stuff. Now i'll be just another alcoholic hobo trying to save money. Fuuuu

On the bright side my new Pikachu vs Squirtle artwork is coming along nicely.

Graduation

I'm done! The last exam I might ever do was completed on the 19 of November. I'm not quite free yet though, I still work part time (only 5 hrs a week though) and I still have a few chores to do which keep me on my toes. I've created a list of things I need to do on my 1 month holiday before I start full time. The first on that list was to drink every last drop of delicious wheat beer given to me by my neighbors. After I did that, my list was pretty much complete so I wrote out a new list on the back of a napkin. Here it is:

1) Find the name of the German beer I drank.
2) Start Brewing my own beer (seriously, this is going to happen. Get excited)
3) Get fit (or fitter) ((or just be less of a fatass))
4) Get involved in beach volleyball at Coogee beach on Saturdays
5) Travel to Melbourne
6) Do an online coding course
7) Learn to cook a few decent meals (that includes at least 1 healthy meal).
8) Play BioShock
9) Make squirtle vs Pikachu bottle cap artwork
10) Use the phrase "Trust me, I'm an Engineer" as much as possible. Even in circumstances where it doesn't apply.

And that's pretty much it. I want it to be a realistic list this time. When I graduated high school I made this list of 100 things I wanted to do. I'm pretty sure I burned the list on the 23rd day or something like that because I couldn't handle other people knowing that I didn't become the; guitar playing, figure skating Olympian I had set out to be.

In the meantime I've got to juggle these self improvement goals with the chore of finding a new housemate. Anna gave us like 3 months warning that she was leaving to move in with a friend of hers. But some things which should not be forgotten were lost - History become legend, legend became myth and for two and a half thousand hours the room passed out of all knowledge, until when chance came, I was given the job of finding a new roommate. But LOTR references aside, this is actually a good opportunity for me to get Matt Gates (a friend from way back) to live with us next semester. It'll be pretty badass to have an arts student and an Engineer living under the same roof - I smell a sitcom brewing.

Speaking of Brewing, i'm buying my own brew kit. I still know pretty much nothing about brewing beer, but does it matter? I'm sure I can take a few shortcuts along the way. I mean, I'll probably end up inventing the next super beer by accident. Trust me, I'm an Engineer.

I was bored at work yesterday so I played around in excel and figured out the grades I need for this semester to get first class honors. Sadly however, I realized I need a 90+ average for each subject. This is pretty unrealistic since I don't think I did that great in my first exam. It's still possible though (TMIAE) so the grade release date is going to be a pretty suspenseful moment because it means I can either JUST make 1st class honors or JUST miss out on it by less than a single WAM point.

Halloween

So Halloween is truly over. Animal House tried to keep it alive as long as possible, but to no avail. The fake blood is dried up, the red punch bowl is empty and the little plastic spiders are now scattered under the furniture. Overall the party was good. Flip cup was a success even though I was definitely not on my A-game. Suprisingly I didn't manage to embarrass myself too much either (with the exception of that time I thought a girl had dressed up as a cave troll). Awkward.

Anywho, the weekend is over and now I'm trying to hit the books again. It's very tough. I dislike both subjects quite a lot so motivation levels are pretty low at the moment.

University is OVER!

SCHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLS OUT FOR THE SUMMER! SCHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLS OUT FORRRRREVER!

But not really, I still have exams coming up. I just don't have a lecture to attend ever again. I finished my last day of Uni the way I started it - by not attending a single class. Wooh!

I also taught my last tutorial for the semester just a few hours ago. I remember it like it was yesterday. The students applauded me at the very end of the class. It started off with Jimmy, a star pupil of mine, slow clapping as I left the classroom. Others joined and the applause increased in loudness and frequency. I heard a high pitched whistle or two blend into the white noise of the now booming applause. Tears were starting to streak from my face as I powerfully pulled open the door for my triumphant departure. Liquid sunlight drenched the front of my body as I stared into the world beyond the door. Proudly stepping through the abyss I heard the faint crackle of fireworks echoing from the end of the classroom. I did it.

Oh, I also attended a Learning and Teaching debate thing today too. I was a member of the student panel answering questions about how to improve student learning. At the end I got a 50$ coupon and a free lunch! A video showing my responses will be uploaded to UNSW TV in about 4 weeks.

Now what do I do?

Student Learning

I've been invited to be a member of the LT student panel this coming Friday. I'll be sitting on a stage and asked a whole bunch of questions about online learning and the future of education at UNSW. I'm going to be joined by 3 other students from different backgrounds within UNSW.

Me: Undergrad, Engineering, male
Student 1: Undergrad, arts, female
Student 2: Post grad, biology, ?
Student 3: Undergrad, ?, ?

Student 1 and I finished having the 'interview' (although it was really more of an information session) today. They asked us questions which pretty much boiled down into a chat about what our positions were regarding online learning.

I realized almost instantly that they collected a whole bunch of different students with the intention of sparking a heated debate. Student 1 (the undergraduate arts student) is a 30 year old computer hating enthusiast. She openly proclaimed that she couldn't use them and thinks she never will. She even gave a fascinating example of how she thought an assignments instructions "use double spacing" mean't she had to press the space bar twice in between every word. I'll summarize her argument in dot point by subtracting her beautifully worded waffle and leaving the meat.
1) Online lectures are bad because no student will attend class anymore
2) In class learning is > any alternative assuming you have an inspiring teacher
3) If given the chance, online learning tools will eventually replace Professors and traditional teaching.

The only way I could hold myself back from ripping into her argument was by making my face a statue. Every beautifully articulated phrase bounced off my face causing only a minor crease in my fake smile and maybe an occasional twitch in my left eye. OK, this is why I'm awesome and she's not:

1) Albeit Engineering is very different to any arts subject, so not everything I'm going to say is applicable to other subjects (although I suspect most of it will be). Firstly, I do not think class attendance will dwindle, in fact I think it will increase if Online learning is applied correctly. What does 'applied correctly' mean Matthew? Thanks for asking Matthew. Online resources should be used purely as an enhancement NOT a replacement for teaching. Class should be dedicated to deriving theory (or explaining underlying concepts) and tutorials should be dedicated to practicing these concepts, however all online tools should be dedicated to: filling the gaps in student knowledge, providing assessment, providing additional learning material to foster creativity and enthusiasm for the subject. Online lectures make up just a small part of online learning and can assist in at least the first two things i mentioned.

In my experience, people who end up skipping class don't skip class because they have a party to go to (especially in Engineering). Instead I find that people skip class because they feel that they will get a negligible benefit from attending. This should say more about the quality of traditional teaching than online learning. In the last few years YouTube has become such a 'how to' tool. You can learn how to do anything from making a cake to finding the shear stress in beams. As of late 2012, YouTube has been filled to the rim with educational videos provided by MIT OpenCourseWare, the Khan Academy, Udacity and more. Most of these videos come in the form of 10 minute snippets making them the perfect way to fill in the gaps or improve student learning. They also allow students to learn at their own pace (with the FF, RW and Pause features), which is crucial! These videos should never replace learning though. That will kill motivation.

While I'm on a rant, let me talk briefly about what's happening now in Engineering courses. A lot of courses (I'd say a majority is an understatement) feature professors who cling to power point presentations to deliver information. As a result, professors end up describing the slides for hours and only end up putting the occasional extra commentary in. I view this as a convenient cop out. I think professors need to ditch the power points and teach old school with the blackboard and chalk. It's an effective way to teach and it is the main source of motivation that the students need. The role of the professor is vital!

2) This is just untrue. I referred to studies in my Thesis that showed that blended learning (Traditional + online) is vastly superior to just traditional learning. Analtyical subjects thrive on the idea of having in class lectures to explain the basic concepts and provide motivation, and have online tools to refine and improve.

3) This sounds like George Orwell's 1984 hysteria. In short I think online learning can assist teaching, and this will make Professors more internationally acclaimed. The best way I can describe this is through an analogy. Consider the paranoia surrounding the rise of online sharing of music in the early 2000's. At the time, people thought that not being able to buy records would spell the end of record companies. However, due to royalty cheques and advertisements, musicians still get buy comfortably. I think this can be applied to online learning. Professors like Walter Luis are already tapping this online market and are earning quite a reputation. Now it isn't enough to live off YouTube videos, but as long as Universities keep paying Professors (which they should as I've argued earlier), then there will be no economical issues.

On a separate note, I went to the beach yesterday and put sunscreen everywhere on my body except for one vital area; the back of my knees. It hurts so much when I walk that I'm forced to imitate a penguin :(

Game of life

Dear Reader,

If you're reading this then you are one of the first to witness my thorough transformation. I graduate in less than a month now, and I'm starting to consider all my options - almost all of which involve stepping into the real world. In case you don't know, the real world is a magical place filled with ties, suites, highly polished shoes and well structured emails. I've decided that I shall engage in these relevant real world activities to prepare myself for an economically sustainable future. I'm starting with this blog. From now on, every blog will feature grammatically correct sentences and the occasional line of forced social commentary.

Kind Regards,
Matthew James

FUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKK THAT!

dis shit be cray, yo.

I think the only thing worse than having no options available to you, is to have several. Lets face it, there is a bit of anxiety associated with finally stepping through only one of the doors that you've seen open for quite some time. I think the movie "the graduate" pretty well describes what I'm going through (minus the sleeping with other peoples mothers). I've got a few options available to me right now, and i'm unsure which door to step through. There more I talk to people, the more conflicted and paranoid I get. It's come to the point where I no longer view advice from people as being advice anymore, I view it as a subtle form of manipulation. This creates a pretty damn fine circle of confusion which I'm strapped to.

As far as I can see it, my life is like a cheesy game show. The aim of the game is to choose the door that has an expensive ferrari behind it, all other doors hide a lifelong subscription of soap. Sadly, this game show isn't like the monty hall problem, so there is no easy way for me to trick the probability of getting the car.

Door 1:
I've been offered a job with professor Prusty for 2014. The job is a mix of computer coding and education planning. It would involve me working full time throughout november and december this year and also all of 2014. It pays a bit over 60kpa.

Door 2:
Apply for jobs in the real world - also known as the "re world" in da hood. This adds a bit of risk since I don't know if I'll get a job any time soon and I don't know if I'll like it.

Door 3:
Work for my maths professor for 2 months. This would involve reinventing the maths syllabus for year 12 students. This would be great fun! Sadly, I don't have much time on my hands to pick up the extra responsibilities.

Door 4:
Don't work and travel. This definitely seems like a good option right now. But I think that's because I'm stressed from uni. I think 1 month out of Uni i'll be bored and in desperate need of clean underwear. Also, I would never be able to escape the anxiety associated with the inevitability of choosing another door later.

I've been stalling for a while now, so if I decide to go through door 1, then I need to sprint head first through it.

Will Matthew choose the right door? Can he drive away in a ferrari? Or will he walk back home with a much needed supply of soap? Find out in 2 months! If you want to cast your vote, or make bets into Matthew decision, call 0403716115 or contact him on facebook.

Overall, this has left me a little pessimistic. I find it a bit disappointing that higher education and university is being seen as an optional training camp, rather than a hub of intellectuals who are just curious about the way the world works. It gives me the impression that Universities are just factories that pump out degrees to give people practical knowledge.

The future

Isn't it weird that because light and sound travel at finite speeds, all that we observe is actually in the past... dun dun duuuun.

Yeah, I know the title "The future" is pretty vague, but no, i'm not going to be spending my time writing about nerdy sci fi. Instead, i'm going to be talking about the much more boring interpretation of "The future". My future :)

Where to start? Where to start?

Ok, how about this. While I was typing away in my little cubical on campus, I noticed my boss walk by. He was packed up for the day and heading home. As he walked past me, he pulled open the door to let himself out, then paused for a brief second, hesitated, then leaned slightly towards me and said in a completely relaxed undertone "Hey Matt, do you want to work for us full time next year?". I was so shocked by the question that I froze briefly (which involved at least 30 seconds of me umming and urring). I must have looked like a deer stuck in headlights, because I was so stunned by the question (and it's context) that I instinctively blabbered out the first well memorized one liner I'd used for decades. I said "I need to ask my dad" in that overly polite 1950's school kid accent.

But 1950's stereotypes aside, I do have some news for you. In a couple of months, you won't have to read about the boring adventures of Matt at UNSW. That's right. The wheels are in motion. I'm thinking of making another adventure outside of Australia! Except this time, my adventure outside of Australia will probably just be within Australia. Basically I want to take advantage of the free time I'll have after I graduate to see more of the country I've been living in for the past ten years. I especially want to hit up Melbourne. I've heard that place is pretty badass. Also I'm going to Japan in Mid Jan. That should be badass too!

ignorance is bliss

I came across a really interesting quote today. It went: "The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know". I find this really coincidental because I recently came to the realization that I'm an idiot and I know hardly anything about the world around me. I guess that must mean I'm a good learner, huh?

Oh man, now I feel pressured to write something about my life that's at least somewhat interesting... Uhhhghh, Ok, well I had a party at my place on Friday. I got wasted, my brother got glassed and the house is full of vomit.

Yeah, i'm sorry. I know my story writing enthusiasm has gone down a bit recently. I think that's because I keep hearing stories about friends of mine who have graduated and are now living meaningful lives. I guess I know I can't compete with people who genuinely have something interesting to write about.

Trouble in paradise

I just finished a 1 hour tutoring class. I could not be more frustrated. The course organization is awful. I was promised to be given the tutorial problems a week before todays class, yet despite me asking the professors and course organizers, I never received them - I only had the solutions. I figured I could wing it on the spot by asking a student to lend me the text book, however no student had the textbook on them. I managed to work backwards from the solution to find out what the problem was, but it made the whole teaching process pretty confusing. To make things worse, 10 minutes of class was meant to be dedicated for the students to meet up with their group members. I thought this was going to be an easy exercise, but it turns out that the professor hadn't told them what groups they were meant to be assigned into yet. The assignment is due next week! I ended up putting students in groups organized in alphabetical order - but it took a long time and we ended up going over time.

To top it all off, students were asking about several typos in the assignment (which I haven't been given a copy of!), and there are several computer issues with the online tutorials which I don't have access to.

It's good to know this course hasn't changed since I was enrolled in it.

In other news, I made a salad yesterday. Wooh

People are dumb

I went to a debate last night that was being held at UNSW in CLB7. The debate was titled "did God create man, or did man create God". It started at 6:30 on a Friday night, which was perfect for me because I don't have friends. As soon as I entered the debate I noticed the intense security - 2 bouncers at each of the 3 entrances. The crowed was filled with at least 80% Muslims wearing burqas, dish dash's etc. There were 4 main speakers: 2 well respected Muslim writers and 2 Atheists (a journalist and the president of the Sydney University Atheist society).

Now I know you probably don't want to hear about philosophy or religion very much, so to make this a little less painful, I'll stuff in the occasional racist joke.

The first speaker talked about a supposed proof of the existence of God. His first line was "Allah Exists because it's obvious he exists and it's common sense. And the 'atheist narrative' is patently immoral." Later through his speech, he made arguments for the proof of God which were essentially a pretty reworking of Thomas Aquinas's first cause argument and also countless of examples showing the inner evil of atheism.

At that point, I figured the debate couldn't get any worse. I was wrong. The Sydney Atheist leader stood up to make rebuttal speech and I couldn't have been more disappointed. There were so many gaps in the previous argument that I thought could have been refuted that would have been relevant to the question. Instead, he stood up and rambled on about the immorality of religion and relied upon analogy to 'prove' his points.

I left the debate shortly afterwards because I knew this was just going to be another debate where both sides would completely miss the question. This is the 3rd religious debate I've attended in Sydney and they all end up the same way. All speakers come in to address a certain question, but then get side tracked and go down the morality path. Whether God is moral or not is a completely separate question.

What frustrates me most, however, was how the people who attended these debates don't go for the sake of acquiring knowledge or new ideas - they go to hear what they want to hear. The Muslims who were bursting out "insh'Allah" to the accusations that atheists were immoral weren't attending the debate to get their ideas challenged. They were going to reaffirm their belief that Allah is the one and only God. This is a scary thought and it leaves me quite pessimistic about humanity as a whole.

I think this goes further than religion though. I'd suspect it's human nature to want to reinforce cultural bias. The election coming up between Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd is a pretty good example. I think we're all sick to death of seeing the ads on TV about how Tony Abbott is an evil criminal out to destroy Australia or how Kevin Rudd is trying to destroy jobs etc. But these ads are on TV because this shit actually works!

I was talking to a roommate a few days ago and he/she told me that he/she could never vote for Kevin Rudd because he's too smug. Whilst that may be true, it's so totally important NOT to judge someones ability to serve as prime minister based off their character traits! Vote for the party, not the person. Vote based off the political policies the party plans to implement, and ignore the irrelevant character traits and awkward photo shoots. Fuck.

Alright alright, I've you're still reading this then you've been really patient with me, so I feel like I need to reward you with a racist joke.

Question: "What is the difference between a couch and an Asian you see on the street?"

Answer: "Nothing. They're both made in China.

Smart Sparrow

Both of my jobs are awesome. I love tutoring because it's one of the few things I think i'm kinda good at. Sadly however, the course topics are getting progressively harder, so I can notice the kids who are falling behind because they haven't done any homework since the start of semester. The other job is starting to get really interesting too. Even though it's mostly about computer coding (which I thought I would hate), it's kinda cool being able to have an influence on a program that could be revolutionary to the way Universities teach. UNSW is working with a company who created a program called Smart Sparrow, and I do all my coding through that program and adobe Director. My first project is to create an online tutorial for an Engineering Design course. I think that's really cool because Engineering design, unlike any other Engineering course, has multiple different answers which gives me an opportunity to be creative. Check out the link to see a brief sugar loaded ad for what our team does http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc9ZlBUQ7hU

I figure I'm probably boring you with Engineering, but in for a penny, in for a pound... I also went to a lecture today (I know, I know) for my Design course. The guest speaker was talking about intellectual property. I took the lecturers card and kept it for potential later use. I've been clutching onto an idea for a few months now that I think is a good invention that could generate electricity. Maybe it'll be worth looking into once I graduate? It almost certainly won't, but maybe it will :)

In other news, I have snapchat now. That's right, if you know me and if you're a good friend of mine prepare yourself to be bombarded with photos of; food, dog shit, broken stuff, beer and selfies.

Oh, I also decided to hop on the bandwagon and join twitter. So far I don't feel attached to it at all, but i'll give it a while for it's heroin type affect to drag me into it's beauty.

watching grass grow

Good news! I finished the City2Surf in 1 hour and 9 minutes! I know that's a pretty bad time by most peoples standards, but in all honestly, i'm just glad I finished the run. Sadly however, the run came at the cost of my hearing ability. I listened to bangarang waaaaaaaay too many times. But on the bright side, I also hear faint echos of dubstep wherever I go, which is kinda cool.

A friend of mine from my old old high school, JIS, contacted me yesterday telling me he was in Sydney. I left JIS in grade 8 which means I haven't seen this guy in about 9 years. His name is Dallas, so I'm just going to assume he's a Texan redneck now.

Uni work is piling up and I’m finding myself disgustingly calm about it. I really need to get working on my assignments now so I can finish them on time. Buuuuuuuuuuuut they’re soooooooooo booooooring :(

In other news, Jasper and I have decided to collect discarded couches from around the neighborhood and litter them around the outskirts of our back yard. I'ts mainly to entertain guests for the party we're hosting sometime later this month. However, we've discovered that we can also use these couches as an alternative to cutting the grass. We leave a couch on one spot of the backyard for a few weeks to suffocate the grass from sunlight, then we move the couch. I like to think of it as a modern day crop rotation technique - bring on the next agricultural revolution!

jobs

I just finished week 2 which means that I've completed my first week of being a tutor. I love it. It's the first job I've started where I haven't been yelled at by the boss and/or started a fire. It's a lot more rewarding than the private math tutoring job I had once I left high school. All the students are really clever and attentive which makes it really fun to engage them with difficult questions. I also just got hired to work as a partial web designer for this new program UNSW is designing. It's called SmartSparrow and my professor has hopes that it'll compete with the MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) released by M.I.T. and Stanford.

In other news, I'm running the City2Surf tomorrow. I'm nowhere near ready. The gym membership I purchased isn't working - the card has been in my pocket for 3 whole days now, but I still don't feel any fitter. I'm in the red group which means that I'm at the front of the pack. I really want to paint half my face blue, carry a fake sword with me and shout out "FREEDOM"! at the top of my lungs when the gun goes off but sadly all my friends are in the green group, so there's not much point.

In other other news, Jasper left his phone in my room accidently last night. He also accidently left his 6:00am alarm on even though he didn't need it. I think I activated my inner cave man this morning because I grabbed the phone, meshed the keypad with my palm a few times, then gave up and chucked it at Jaspers door.

In other other other news, I discovered an easy and convenient way to make penne. I was playing computer games with Lachie and Collin for a few hours last night, and decided I didn't have enough time to overlook boiling pasta - so I decided to let the pasta sit in a bowl of warm water for 2 hours. By the time I got back to it, the pasta was perfect (by my standards). The roommates had a very different perception about leaving Penne to marinate in water, but I could tell they were just jealous. I've decided to copyright this invention and call it Manne. All the Italians will wan't Manne once they hear about this.

Jet Laaaaaaaaaag

I still can't sleep. I'm fighting with my brain 24/7 to make me sleep at the right time. If I were to personify my brain, he would be a patronizing, stubborn British Gentleman in his early 40's named 'James'.

The arguments James and I have when I try to go to bed go something like this:

Matt: Alright brain, let me sleep.

James: I can't let you do that, Matt.

Matt: But we're in Australia now!

James: No, I'm very sure we're still in China.

Matt: It's dark outside!

James: Don't worry, I'll wake you up at 3:00am.

Other than my recent downfall into schizophrenia, not much has happened in my life since I've been back. Perhaps the most interesting and exciting event I accomplished since being back was making my first bucket of curry. It's amazing how fast I can regress back into my old self once given the option of TV, Mario Kart and a fridge full of food. I'm kind of like the incredible hulk in a way, except I'm triggered by hunger and I transform into a hobo.

In other news, class is kinda cool. One of my subjects MMAN4100 (or is it MECH4100? I dunno, i'll write down whatever the course name is once I'm given it in the exam) is really cool. It's a subject based on job experience. They get about 12 companies who have really creative problems they want solved ranging from resizing crates to noise dampening centrifuges. These companies don't want to actually pay people to do their work, so they come to Uni and make students solve their problems for them and 'pay' them with compulsory work experience. It's a balanced deal though because what the companies gain by not paying students, they loose by having inexperienced idiots solve complicated problems.

I really want to see what vibration analysis is like in the real world so I think i'm going to join Sydney Water's project and see if I can figure out their resonance issue. I would ideally like to do something more directly related to mechanical engineering but all the real world problems are solved by mindlessly plugging values into a computer and seeing what pops up. Vibration analysis (so I'm told) is one of the last areas of mechanical engineering that isn't hijacked by computer analysis.

This is all coming at a good time because my industrial training report that I handed in last year just got marked. 100%! Wooh

Uni starts for the last time

This is my last semester of Uni so I've got a good reason to do it right. I've only had one class so far, and it's not that bad. I was very nervous about doing a professional elective that wasn't very math heavy, however the lecturer can speak fluent English and the course content seems kinda interesting so I think i'll be pretty happy with the course.

On a different note, I'm missing Europe already. My body has finished detoxing and now I'm feeling the withdrawals :(. In the later parts of Europe I had one policy - "go hard or go home". Which, now that I think about it, really simplified down to - "throw up everywhere and go home or go home".

The last day in London was spent with my brother and a Canadian we met in a pub near Waterloo. We discovered, to our amazement, that the London Subway station's district line looks exactly like a beer bottle. We took this as a sign that we had to go to each individual station, find the nearest pub and drink one beer each. A very tough task considering there are 28 stops. Half way through the Canadian put his rain jacket in my bag so he wouldn't have to worry about carrying it around. Sadly I blacked out at the 8th pub (I know, I know), but I've been told people fell down escalators and someone (not gonna say who) passed out in the bathroom with his head disgustingly close to the urinal. Eventually we made it back to a friends place safe and sound - somehow losing track of the Canadian along the way. I awoke the next day to find his rain jacket in my bag still. Rather than burden my friend by leaving it in his place, I decided to put it in my main luggage and head off to the airport. About 4 hours into the 25 hour flight a very frightening thought started spreading through my mind. What if the Canadian had drugs in his rain jacket pocket?! When we arrived in Sydney, my brothers bag came out first. I anticipated mine would come out soon afterwards considering we checked in at the same time. 10 minutes later the conveyor belt stopped. The thought of sniffer dogs running past the luggage and stopping suspiciously at my bag among hundreds was freaking me out. Buuuuuuuuuuut eventually the bag came out and I checked the pockets of the jacket before I went into the security check - false alarm. Phew.

Australia day 1

So I just arrived back in Aus after a 25 hour flight (including 4 hours stop over in China). Surprisingly I'm not exhausted at all. I actually enjoyed the flights. The flight from China to Australia involved my all time favorite classic meal; "fish noodle".

I arrived back in Pymble to greet my grandparents who had been staying at my parents house and looking after molly. It's good to meet up with them again.

I'm also looking forward to starting Uni tomorrow too. I think it'll be awesome to say hello to 17 middle again and start some classes. I definitely need to mentally engage myself after a month of beer sculling.

France day 4

My last hours in France were spent mostly touring a castle. We decided not to pay the additional euro for a professional tour. Instead marine was our guide. Sadly though the only thing marine knew about the castle was that it was undergoing renovations because the material the castle was made of partially consisted of sand which meant it was slowly falling apart. I guess that means I made an arguably equally impressive castle when I was a kid.

Afterwards marine Jasper and I went to an all you cab eat French restaurant for only 11€. Naturally i turned this into a competition to see who could eat more. Jasper won.... just. In between the water sculling and food binging I noticed that the food was a french version of pizza. I can't remember what its called but the literal translation is "flamed pie".

For a rematch I challenged Jasper to a chocolate eclare eating competition. We were both exploding from the inside so instead of seeing who could eat more, instead we tried to see who could eat 1 the fastest without hands. I won and earned the respect of Jasper and marine and gaining the inner disgust of the bakery owners.

I took the train to the Airport while deeply concerned that the Ryan air flight might be late. Jaspers Ryan air flight a few days ago arrived 2 hours late which made me think I might miss my bus from the stanstead airport. Spoiler alert: I was fine. The flight itself was interesting because i found myself sitting between two very well built and tall French black men. I practiced my black pigeon English skills as best I could during the 1 hour flight. It payed off because they fist bumped me after the flight. I really wanted to show them a little bit of white culture by introducing them my pacman handshake. I didn't in the end because I'm sure they probably have a good pacman handshake already.

France day 3

Again we woke up at 7:00am to go to an amusement park. The park was so far away that it was technically inside germany. It was really cool. Especially when Jasper almost threw up.

We came back pretty late and just in time for an early supper. Marines parents has prepared frogs legs. A French specialty. It actually does taste just like chicken.

I tried to catch up on emails and Facebook in the 10 minutes I had after super and before the light show, but could t get far because the French keyboard was designed by an overly excited 4 year old.

Oh yeah, we went to the light show afterwards. It was really more of a water show since it featured mostly water fountains with the occasional light flash. Still it was pretty cool and it gave me a chance to talk to some more locals.

France day 1

I'm really glad Pablo isn't dead. If he was, then my Europe trip would be ruined since ID have to spend countless hours listening to some boring guy speak about pablo in Spanish.

I spent my last few hours in bern walking along the beautiful river. The river made me realize that one of the reasons that the places I've seen in Europe are so much more beautiful than Sydney is because of safety. There are very few safety nets, gates, signs located anywhere around the city. I couldn't help but feel that safety nets and signs would poison the ambience of the city if the Australian government somehow got their way in Switzerland. I even noticed that construction workers often work without safety helmets or safety lines. It was interesting to mentally compare that to the overly safety precautions companies I've worked for during my internships.

Lastly I also noticed a lot of young military personnel wandering around the city. I found that really weird in a country that is famous for being neutral. That reminds me; I learned that the German word for 'cheers' is 'Proust'. And I'm not sure, but I'd suspect the word for cheers in Swiss is 'truce'.
OK! Now for France! I met marine in the Strasbourg train station at about 1:00pm. We drove to her house and I met her parents. They're super French. They have accents which parallel only the strongest Hollywood stereotypes. We then drove to the heart of the city where I saw the huge cathedral. The structure of the buildings supposedly make the walkway to the cathedrals very windy. The legend behind it says that the devil rode his horse (which was the wind) all the way to the town, but when the devil tried to enter the cathedral he got scared and ran away without his horse. As a result the wind circles around the cathedral constantly waiting for the devil to return.

We bought a whole bunch of escargots (snails) too which we planned to eat for supper (suppieerr). Naturally I forced marine to take me to the nearest pub where we tried a local French beer called "meteor". It was good, but nothing compared to the German beer. As we were bike riding back I took a whiff of a bakery and uncontrollably detoured inside. Sadly they didn't have any chocolate eclair, but I settled for some baguette. Soooo good.

Afterwards we went to pick up Jasper from the airport. We knew Jasper was arriving in a kangaroo onesie so marine also decided to pick him up in a onesie too. I didn't want to feel left out so I found a filthy lion costume which managed to fit marine when she was 12.

After a bit of an awkward delay we picked up Jasper and spent the rest of the day hanging out in the pool eating crapes with a whole bunch if mixers. Apparently fish eggs and sour cream is very French. I learned by embarrassment that sour cream and nutella is not.

Oh yeah I pulled the super tourist card by walking around with my oversized Texas shirt and asking randoms in English to take photos of me. I also found French goon here. Its cheaper and tastes muuuch better. They call it "wine" though.

Switzerland day 3 continued

Alright so pablo told me he'd send me a text when he came back from his 13 hour journey. I really didn't give a shit that he didn't message me until I read the news that there was a train crash in the south of Paris heading to limoges last night. Not something you want to hear when one of the only things you remember about your friends journey is "I have to take a detour through Paris to go to Limoges then down to Spain."

I sent out a few texts to pablo and his Spanish friends to ask them to confirm his safety. No reply.

About one hour later pablo messages me telling me his phone was just on low battery. Phew.

In other news there's been a fire on a plane in Heathrow London? Is anywhere safe for me to travel? I've got to stop reading the news...

Switzerland day 3

Walking around Bern I noticed this amazing band playing in English on the streets near my hostel. Definitely my kind of music. The band is called worldfly and they are releasing their first album in most European countries in 1 month. After they finished singing they announced they were Australian! I donated a gold coin to them and had a chat to the lead singer. Apparently they won't be releasing their first album in Australia till November.

This morning i had my sights set on traveling to schilthorn via interlochen. Its 2970m high and u get to see the peaks of all the mountains around you. Its also where they filmed a james bond movie. Sadly it also costs a little over 100 Franks each way (a shit tonne of Aussie money) so I decided instead to go to Gurtenbahn via tram which is still within Bern and only costs 8 franks (a lot of Aussie money). I really wanted to go to a place called wankdorf (purely because its called wankdorf) but decided not to in the end.

Swirzerland is really cool because they speak 3 main languages: English, French, and German. So in order to fit in ive invented a phrase which is a crude grouping of all the languages. Thanks but no thanks = merci nein danke you.

I climbed the "small hill" in gurtenbahn. It was a 3 hour climb and I had to take off my shirt half way to squeeze out the sweat. The Swiss really have a different definition for the word steep.

After a quick and much needed siesta I went to the nearest supermarket to supply myself for dinner. My budget was 1 frank which amounted to miniature box of cereal. On the way back I saw a chocolate store and browsed around. Fuck their chocolate is good.

I made friends with a bloke from Austria and 2 girls from Argentina at the hostel today as well. The guy told me that Austria is kind of like the Canada of north America. Apparently all Germans hate them because they've butchered the accent and have a lot of government paid initiatives. Fun fact: all universities in Austria are free.

Overall I can't comment too much on the Switzerland culture. There are so many accents and so many languages that the place gives me the impression that this capital doesn't have a definitive culture. Instead its an accumulation of other cultures from all around the world. I did find this one exotic type of food that was abandoned though. I can't pronounce it (and CBF spelling it) but its like a sausage that's been wrapped around in a spiral. It looks a bit like a dog shit, but tastes amazing.

Switzerland day 2

What a great day! The stereotype that Switzerland is not a party country is true, however it makes up for its lack of facilitating young drunkenness by supplying some excellent day activities.

We woke up in the hostel and managed to make a breakfast consisting almost entirely of deserted food left from previous backpackers. Muesli and egg for the win!

We headed to the beautiful river that boarders pretty much the entire city and walked along it for a while. We almost bumped directly into 3 bears along the way. That's right, Switzerland constructed a natural habitat for bears right along the main river in the middle of their capital city. After a lot of photos, videos and mindless cheering we decided to continue walking. We approached a 7m high bridge and got changed into our swimmers and put all of our belongings in a special waterproof bag. After generating a bit of a crowed both pablo and I jumped off the bridge and jumped into the water! You only realize how high 7m is when you're leaning off the bridge fence looking down, and when you hit the water and realize that the river bed is much shallower than you expected. We floated freely down the river for ages. its so wide, fast and relaxing floating freely through a capital city. To give you an indication of how cool it is to legally float down this river, just imagine if all the Sydney beaches came right up to the CBD and workers just decided to go for a dip after and before work. That's how awesome it feels.

Afterwards pablo and i made more shit food and went to see the Einstein museum. Fun fact: Einstein married his cousin. Yay incest.

Sadly time was up and pablo had to leave back to Madrid. Because he hadn't booked his transport in advance he's facing a 13 hour trip right through France via train and bus at the cost of 140€. Ouch.

Ive got all tomorrow to myself and I'm thinking of going to neuchatel in the west part of Switzerland. Wooh!

Oh yeah we also found giant chess pieces in the middle of the street and played two games. I won both :)

Switzerland day 1

Pablo and I made a fast and uncalculated decision to go to switzerland. We could not out stay our welcome with the ficher family so we looked for place to go down south. After hearing some valuable advice from my parents we decided to go to Bern and explore what Switzerland has to offer. I'm staying for 3 nights then going to Strasbourg and Pablo is staying for 2 nights then going home to Madrid.

We found a train that left fairly early in the morning so we had to make a somewhat abrupt fair well. Sadly we had no chance to say goodbye to Christina in person.

We arrived and booked into the first hostel we saw. Afterwards we toured the city. there is a giant river that passes through the capital which you are allowed to jump in to and go swimming! Its really cool because the river travels at least 14km/hr. No doubt we are doing that tomorrow morning.

The town is really pretty and friendly. Sadly though I can't find anything to do. All I see are beautiful residential areas and the occasional closed bar. The hostel is a tad of a disappointment too unfortunately. Its filled with middle aged couples and very closed Asian friend groups. I guess my standards are a bit high after staying at the flying pig in Amsterdam.

We were unable to celebrate pablos birthday yesterday so we are probably going to get drunk with the rum which Pablo bought me and see if there is a club here.

We still haven't met all of our roommates yet so there is a good chance that some of them will be keen to get drunk with us.

Germany day 3

Another beautiful day in Mannheim. Pablo and I borrowed bikes and headed south to neustradt and haardt. Each small town is suspended by miles of beautiful countryside which made the trip perfect. I realized that if my life came down to bike riding away at a fast pace, I would definitely die. Maybe my obese outer shell can be put down to constant traveling, lack of exercise, or eating 3 slices of German cake for breakfast each morning.

When returning we went for a swim in Thomas's pool and drank a few wonderful crystal (Kristal) beers which taste amazingly similar to hefeweizen.

For dinner we were invited to Cristina's house. We enjoyed more German beer including radler, which is a mix of any pilsner beer and soda water. Germans really love their soda water over here... while we were eating we were taught one really easy to make meal called curry sausages. They're simple pork sausages drenched in tomato sauce and curry powder. I'm definitely bringing that one back to Australia. I also leaned about a "napkin" which is a German piece of paper which you use to clean your face after eating. Germans are so efficient!

Over dinner we got talking once again about alcohol and in particular about unique Spanish and Australian drinks. Pablo taught them that sangria was a mix of red wine (60%), lemonade (20%), coniac (3%), rum (3%), gin (3%), and fruit (10%).
I taught them about an Australian specialty called kings cup which is a mix of red wine (30%), white wine (30%), beer (20%), coke & lemonade (15%) and backwash (5%).

Germany day 2

We woke up at the crack of dawn (9:00am) so that could get ready to travel to Heidelberg. Christina joined us which meant pablo was no longer designated map reader. We got to see the castle and the university. Its technically a university town but it doesn't feel like one. The students are very quiet and don't venture outside of the immediate campus, which is bizarre because the campus buildings blend really nicely with the rest of the town. There are also tourists everywhere (Americans especially). The place itself is very old fashioned - especially the roofs. It strangely matches the Italian architecture stereotype. Maybe that's because they both have a strong roman past? I don't know.

We stopped for lunch and had perhaps the greatest meal I've ever eaten. Saumagen with sauerkraut and potatoes. To top it off I enjoyed a full 0.5 litre of great quality hefeweizen. We enjoyed eating the fantastic meal outside listening to relaxing music in a beautiful sunny 30° day. This is exactly what I wanted out of Germany.

Yesterday I put a bit of polite pressure on Thomas to take us out to a wine festival. He caved and took us to one only 5km away from the village for dinner. The village wasn't too far so we decided to all bike ride there. We are located smack bam in the middle of acres and acres of grape plantations used for making wine, so the bike ride was really beautiful. The festival itself was a bit leas than a 'get wasted and dance on tables to German music' than I expected, bit it was pretty close. I enjoyed a very famous drink in Mannheim called "Weissherbst schorle" which is a full glass of 70% rose and 30% mineral water. The mineral actually brings out the flavor of the wine so I wouldn't recommend it as a mixer for goon.

Germany day 1

Surprisingly the German train from Amsterdam to Mannheim was delayed by a whole 10 minutes. This crushed the stereotype that all Germans are punctual and mechanically savvy.

Any who we arrived at the train station pretty much on time and met my dads good friend, Thomas. Thomas has an older brother who owns a car rental business so renting a car for 3 days and handing me the keys wasn't a problem. Wooh!

I was getting very excited at the idea of traveling around Germany in my own personal car when I noticed a gear stick protruding out of where there should have been a cup holder. This is where it gets interesting. Basically I can't drive a manual car and we have no way of getting to the house without abandoning it. Thomas decides that the best solution to this problem is to give me a quick 20 second theory lesson and a one minute practical. After a series of unsuccessful jagged starts and stops and accidental engine shut downs, Thomas sighs, looks at his watch and tells me I'm ready to drive 10km to his house.

Shit scared doesn't even begin to describe what I was feeling. Here I was driving on the opposite side of the road, in a country I'm not familiar with, in a car ive never seen, that's not an automatic. I'm pretty sure pablo was as scared of death as me, but he put on a very convincing poker face and ended IP assisting me every now and then by grabbing the wheel when I focused on changing gears. We probably got closest to death when the car stalled in the middle of a round about. Fortunately we made it without any major casualties and got to visit the entire ficher family.

Over some amazing food and great whether we talked about past adventures, how much I had grown, and what we planned to do in Germany. Overall we were treated exceptionally well.

Its pretty crazy to realize that all the emotions I wanted to experience while in Germany including; fear, excitement, joy etc were all experienced in the first hour of being in Germany.

Netherlands day 4

We slept till about 1:00pm to help us battle the hangover. After that we toured the city some more. I keep viewing pablo as an imported Spanish assistant because he always carries the map and finds out where to go.

We went to see the Anne frank museum at roughly 3, Anne frankly it was awesome. Fortunately there were no kids, reckless teenagers or obnoxious Americans touring the house.

In case you don't know, Anne frank was a very intelligent Jewish 13 year old girl who got caught by the Germans 1 month before the liberation in world war 2. She was then sent to Auschwitz where she died under the false belief that all of her family members were dead.

Reading small snippets of her diary on the walls in warehouse in which she used to hide in made me realize one thing - I've got powerful competition for the title of best diary creator.

Pablo and I met up with Des at 6 and we got to see her roommates. They're really cool. We first met them as they were sitting on the balcony spraying each other with water pistols. By the end we were joining in on a full fledged water fight. Awesome.

We then met up with some of des's american friends who were temporarily staying in Amsterdam. They were both from upstate new York. All 5 of us attempted to go out downtown but a combination of closed venues, forgotten id's and expensive entry fees resulted in us ending back at des's house drinking wine and eating salami. The night ended at 4am when pablo and I decided to go home via bicycle.

In general I really like the bike riding here. The flat landscape of the country makes it a really easy and practical alternative driving. 

Netherlands day 3

Pablo and I spent a large part of the morning dealing with public transport and checking into our new hostel. I booked the "downtown flying pig hostel" for Friday and Saturday. The place has a different feel to the beach hostel. This hostel has a less relaxed vibe and more of a party vibe. Its kinda like this hostel is one giant pub.
We rented bikes for 3 hours and ride all around Amsterdam. In particular we hit 3 main destinations in this order: The van Gogh museum, the Heineken factory, and Puccini's chocolate store. The Heineken factory exceeded expectations ten fold despite being one giant advertisement mainly because they gave out 2 free beers at the end of the tour and because they did a great job teaching you how to make beer. Puccini's was a bit of a disappointment only because it didn't live up to its reputation of having the best chocolate in the world. Still really good though.

In the late evening we made friends with 3 other people at our hostel. I can't remember their names but there was one Spanish (or Mexican) girl and 2 Kenyan guys. I'll just call the girl shakira and the guys usain bolt 1 and usain bolt 2. After a lot of pre drinking in the hostel and a few bars we decided to hit a club which had a venue called "kill all hipsters". It had a good vibe.

UB1, UB2, Shakira, pablo and I ordered a rum and coke each when we got inside. They gave us a plastic cup filled with ice and Bacardi white rum and a separate bottle of coca-cola. We ordered so many of them that they gave us two free shots half way through the night.

Netherlands day 2

Pablo and i took the 9:30am bus to Amsterdam. Its really cool. There are bikes everywhere. Every street corner, every coffee shop and every parking lot is covered with 1950s looking bikes. Needless to say, i almost got run over at least 3 times.

We met David Frew, Des, and a friend of theirs at a small little coffee shop (an actual coffee shop). Its so weird seeing David in not pymble.

After that we wandered throughout the city and even went past the red light district. It was only 12, but prostitutes were already getting started by posing in front of giant glass windows.

We eventually ended up going to a "go museum" which featured a lot of modern art. I'm not much of a fan for art (unless its made out of bottle caps), but I found it a pretty interesting experience.

After that we went to a pub selling local beer only. Holy crap the beer here is great. So strong and flavorful. Goodbye V.B, I've got a new favorite beer. Its called "brouwerij'tij".

Lastly, to end the day we went into another coffee shop (no, not a proper coffee shop). I said the magic phrase "I would like one weed please", and we spent the last hour chilling out upstairs. I don't really like the effects of weed too much. Its kinda like instant jet lag in a cigarette.

Netherlands day 1

I arrived in the Amsterdam airport at 11:40am and I couldn't be more impressed. The people are friendly, helpful and fluent at English. I needed to ask information about how to get public transport to my hostel, but I was fearful because previous efforts to get help from locals usually resulted in me making embarrassing hand gestures and noises. I was pleased to hear the lady say "I know a little bit of English" at the counter. Clearly the only word she didn't understand was "little" because her English was 100% fluent. You know you're doing something wrong when someone who claims to know very little English has mastered a greater vocabulary than you.

Before I left the airport, I heard a bunch of eerie screams. Not the type of screams you would expect from a zombie outbreak though - they were high pitched bursts of teenage fan girl screams. That meant only one thing - Justin Bieber. I never got to meet the untalented, overrated teen heartthrob, but I did hear a lot of girls scream his name, and a lot of young adults muttering it.

I'm on a public bus at the moment heading to a place just outside of Amsterdam called Noordvijk which is only a few stops of a place called 'Harlem'. God I do not want to go clubbing there.

I've also noticed that everyone speaks just like the way Vikings speak in the computer game "age of empires". This gives me the very socially dangerous idea that I can have a conversation with someone just by saying the words "choppa" and "boulden" on repeat.

The rest of the day was spent roaming around the immediate area including the beach. Its really beautiful and clean. I'm sad to admit the first building I entered was a McDonalds so that I could steal some free wifi.

The hostel is awesome. Its filled with so many young people from different cultures. I was originally disappointed to discover that the first two people I met were from Australia, however the next 10 people were from: germany, Finland, Sweden, Italy and England. Germans were by far the coolest. I mentioned the war once but I think I got away with it!  Its so interesting to see young people from all over the world bond over their love for marijuana.

China day 2

We were meeting my cousin, Laura, and her boyfriend, Jake, today at 1:30pm in some fancy restaurant. But I really wasn't keen on doing nothing until they arrived so Tom and I decided to go tour the city some more and maybe go shopping. We went to some station which was located right next to temple heaven. The temple lived up yo its reputation. It was massive and had some amazing architecture which gawk at. The temple was made in the 1400s as a place to worship gods and you could see funny looking objects scattered around the occasional worship hut. Poorly translated English was written in tiny font which described the purpose of each sector or item. It turns out that the Chinese used to pour boiling water on animals as a sacrifice to the gods. Mmmmmmmm lobster.

We met Jake and Laura in some fancy restaurant that was inconveniently located no where near the street it was supposed to be on and without a visible street number. Our inability to say anything in Cantonese other than "hello" started to be an issue when we asked the waiter to give us an additional 5 minutes after he started showing us the specials. It turns out we accidentally ordered 5 whole ducks. Fortunately we cancelled the order in time.

After lunch we toured a different part of that neighborhood and passed a place that looks exactly like the china town in Sydney. Chinseption!!

We also went to see to another palace. I got to get a picture of me meeting a monk! It was awesome. We had so much in common.

I also purchased a cheap communist hat! I did it partially for protection against the sun, partially for shits and giggles, and partially to express my new found support for the disestablishment of democracy.

China day 1

<p dir=ltr>I'm heading to China! Its going to be a great trip. Living up to my reputation I only finished booking my flights, busses, trains and accommodation literally a few hours before I got on the plane. Fortunately everything is organized (or organised to be organised). My plan is china - England - Netherlands - Germany - France - England. It should be great fun.</p>
<p dir=ltr>I guess every good story starts off with a feeling of regret. The suitcase I packed is needlessly large. Not just by my standards but by Ryan air standards. I guess my dream of being able to frolic peacefully between hostels with a camping bag full of clothes and essentials is dead. I know its not the biggest deal, but it does say a lot about my decision making abilities when I'm short on time.
<p dir=ltr>But it doesn't have to be this way. I try to turn every international adventure into a way to improve myself, and this trip is going to be no different. Starting from this Chinese airlines flight and extending all the way to my final days in England I'm going to make this trip about independence and exploration.</p>
<p dir=ltr>Alright, dinner was just served on the Chinese airline and I could not be more disappointed. Before I got to exercise my new found independence by asking the waitress to give me the meal of my choice (out of a menu of two options), she informed me that the 'western meal' was all out. I now had to chose between the Chinese meal or the Chinese meal. After bravely choosing the Chinese meal I figured to myself that at least I might be able to explore some fine cuisine. Nope. The Chinese meal was beef and rice. Either the meal was surprisingly western or I've been living on an unsurprisingly Asian diet all my life.</p>
<p dir=ltr>OK so we've landed in china and its nothing short of a sensory overload. We left the airport with our baggage heading for the taxi area when both tom and I were approached by an overly enthusiastic Chinese 'taxi driver'. We got about halfway up the airport walkway when I decides to stop being distracted by the NBA small talk and ask him whether the taxi had a meter on it. He said it didn't and told us that the 'taxi' was a fixed price of &#165;580 to drop us off at the city center. After saying "fuck no" in the politest way possible, he immediately dropped his price to &#165;300. Tom and I decided to ditch him anyway and go for another taxi. After arriving at out destination for &#165;100, tom and I decided to check into our hotel. Not good. We arrived at 8:30am and check in was at 2:00pm - a 5.5 hour wait. </p>
<p dir=ltr>1st hour: <br>
We toured the immediate area by walking around. Its so polluted!! Its nothing like what I was expecting. I expected souring skyscrapers and giant blade runner type advertisements promoting coca-cola. Instead the city area is very spread out and poverty is everywhere. It reminds me a lot of Jakarta bit with fewer (FEWER) people.<br>
Food. We found a dumpling place bear the hostel and decided to walk in. Its much harder to communicate than I expected - no one knows English, not even a little. We tried to pay for the 4 dumplings we had by using hand gestures.&#160; The shop keeper was so confused that he offered to give us &#165;40 for eating there. I just dropped &#165;20 into his hands and left.<br>
We then went back to the hostel to rest in the public lounge area. Tom collapsed in a corner by a fish tank and I started writing this blog.</p>
<p dir=ltr>2nd 3rd 4th and 5th hour:<br>
We couldn't just wait around the hostel air we decided to find a way to the city. An earlier attempt to go to the city centre resulted in tom asking the first white person he saw "do you know where the city center is"?. Unfortunately not every white person speaks fluent English apparently. After a very awkward 30 second conversation of pigeon English with a German family we pretended to understand what they were saying and left. I did learn something though - the hand gesture for "city center" looks amazingly similar to the hand feature for sex.</p>
<p dir=ltr>Anywho, we eventually made it to a place called tian'anmen east via the subway. Wow, just wow. When we arrived at the famous landmark we saw giant TV screens showing communist propaganda - space missions and army marches everywhere. Shortly afterwards we found ourselves bumping into beautiful landmarks - almost literally because the pollution makes the visibility so bad. We almost walked into this beautiful hemispherical shaped theatre when we met two locals; tom and jack (yeah I'm pretty sure they chose those names for our benefit). They were aged about 30 and 40 and both spoke (to our relief) great English. We sussed them out pretty quickly and realized that they were both homeopathy doctors with very deep pockets. We got talking about all the must-do's in Beijing and apparently some once in a year festival was occurring this week only. It was a tea festival at a place called tea city (or was it T.C.T? I can't tell). They invited us to a tea house where we tried a range of amazing teas while talking about China and our German heritage (toms idea). They taught us the way you're meant to hold tea, drink tea and... wait for it... pray with tea. Apparently the first serving of tea should always be wasted in honour of the gods. I didn't let the fact that 1) certain types of teas had supposedly job promoting powers or that 2) the fact that tom and jack had chosen professions that are the cause of a lot of 21ar century outrage bother me. Instead I tried to learn more about the Chinese culture, superstitions and hospitality.

Friends and Family

A good friend of mine from Texas, Marissa, has been visiting Australia for the past few weeks. Fortunately she got some time off from sight seeing to say a quick hi to me. I invited her to a party at 17 Middle where she got to meet my roommates and friends. I've been telling her for ages that Aussies drink very differently from Americans, and now I'm sure that she believes it.

Speaking of international friends, my plans to meet up with Pablo in Amsterdam are getting more and more developed every day. I'm really looking forward to escaping Sydney and getting a refreshing taste of a different culture. Yes, 'taste' is a pun, and yes 'culture' is a metaphor for beer.

These last few weeks have been a really interesting time for me socially. On one side, I've got strong international friendships and good relationships with my roommates. And yet on the other side, I've found myself reevaluating friendships and isolating myself from a lot of social gatherings due to exams.

oh yeah, i finished my exams two days ago. Wooh! The boredom is already starting to settle in my mind. I found myself resisting the temptation to open my Engineering textbook and warm up my brain with a few puzzles. How sad is that, eh? I really need to create a routine that will keep me focused in the dead time I've got between now and my flight to China. Fortunately for me, I actually do have a crap tonne of shit to get done. Now I just need to find someone to help me get motivated to do it.

exam wish

Have you ever been in the situation where you have an exam the following day and you wish that you had just one more day to study for it? Well it looks like Santa got his calender wrong coz I just found out that my exams that I thought were on Monday and Tuesday are actually on Tuesday and Wednesday. Boo Ya.

And who says being unobservant is a bad thing?

Speaking of unobservant, I found a spider in my bed a few nights ago. I didn't realize until I noticed a tickle against my lower leg at 2am. Now I'm starting to take appropriate action. Every night I sweep off my bed covers and scan the bed for signs up spiders. If I find one, I stomp it out with an unnecessary amount of force. This doesn't help though, because all it does is confirm my fear that there are spiders in my bed just waiting to get me.

The Pain killers! They do nothing!

MY BRAIN IS ON FIRE!!

When will this headache stop!?!? :(

Brrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiinnnsss

I got my first study headache today! It feels like the sides of your head are being crushed and the top of your head is cracking open. I welcome the feeling though because it means I'm being productive :D.

Although to be completely honest with you, I'm not sure if my headache is a result of me studying or due to a lack of water and increased Chinese food. It's a mystery for the ages...

So I have two exams that are coming up really soon. One is on the 17th and the other is on the 18th. Wooh! The good side is that it leaves me with 10 days to do wtf I want before i start traveling. The bad side is that it means it gives me less time to study for my subjects. Ideally I would have liked an additional 4 days study :(. Ah well.

Speaking of me roaming around doing nothing for 10 days, a new movie called WWZ (world war zombies!) is coming out staring Brad Pit. I'm not much of a fan of ol' Pity, but i'll probs watch it anyway just because it has zombies in it! It's been a while since ive seen a good slash and bite murder scene. Apparently the movie has very mixed reviews. That's to be expected though with movies like this. Clearly the people who vote it down get too caught up on "Plot Line" and "Dialogue". Pffftttt, who needs that shit. Give me guns, explosions and a handful a few scenes of people firing duel machine guns into the fray and I'll be happy. Having a human turn into a zombie after being mauled apart by a dog zombie - now that's real character development.

MY THESIS IS DONE!

Ain't my Thesis not incomplete, it isn't.

future me

I've decided to dedicate this post to my future self. I reckon when I'm much older and have nothing left to live for except the promise of my next pay cheque, I'll resort to looking at this blog to figure out when exactly my life went so wrong :P.

Answer: Drugs. Matt, you should have done less drugs.

But behind the coke sniffing, petrol drinking, meth injecting, herb smoking broken shell of a human I am, there lies the real me. And that real me wants to give future me a few pointers:

1) Don't lose the ambition to do the things you love
2) Oh yeah, get the ambition to do the things you love.
3) Learn to play the guitar. Or if you already know how to play the guitar - learn to play it better.
4) Invest in leather pants. It can't be too long until they become fashionable again.
5) Donate generously to homeless shelters. Face it mate, that's you're real superannuation.
6) I'm assuming by now you're living your dream of becoming a world famous ballet dancer, so my advice to you now is: Keep to the fundamentals - no flashy moves. Twirl, jump, spin. Twirl, jump, spin. And watch inspirational dancing movies like; Dirty Dancing, Footloose and Black Swan. Keep up the good work!

THESIS and buckets

My Thesis is due in 5 days!! It's been almost done for a bout 2 weeks now, especially if you consider 40 pages away from your target as 'almost done'. But yeah, this time I mean it! I've also got a few assessments and quiz's which I need to jump over in order to hand my Thesis in on time, but overall it shouldn't be an issue.

BACK TO LIVING IN FILTH!

I resorted to spraying my dirty shirt with surface cleaner yesterday. What? My shirt's a surface. It's unsurprisingly ineffective. But on the bright side, I made myself a bucket of stir fry last night. A shit tonne of veges, chicken, rice and love is condensed into a conveniently sized bucket, and waiting for me patiently on the bottom layer of the fridge. MMmMMmMmm leftovers.

YOLO unless you're Jesus.

I've always wondered what a midlife crisis actually feels like. I've always found it quite puzzling how a person can just spontaneously erupt into life after having a sudden epiphany that they've wasted the first 40 something years of their life. At what point do these men draw the line and go "fuck, what am I doing?". Is it when they lose their hair? When they finally balance their budget? When they discover their favorite song is considered by the radio station to be part of the 'oldies' section? I dunno. Do women suffer from a midlife crisis? I'd suspect so, but it doesn't seem as cliche.

I'm only talking about this because my mum mentioned something to me about 3 weeks ago which only now registered in my brain. She said 'the prime of your life is in your early 20's'. That's a pretty heavy fact, and a depressing one too if you only just realized that you're no longer in your 'early 20's'.

Society reinforces this concept a whole lot too I think. I think Lilly Allen's song "22" captures this pretty well. Yes, I listen to Lilly Allen. No, that doesn't make me gay. Fuck you.

I've also been thinking more about potential job prospects. After a few unsuccessful attempts to get anywhere, I decided to mimic Auguste Rodin's "the thinker" by sitting naked on a stool in my backyard balancing my head on my fist and staring intently at the ground. After being caught in the spotlight by my roommates I realized my true calling. Ballet. Yeah, I want to become a ballet dancer. No, that doesn't make me gay. Fuck you.

But all this midlife crisis shit will never affect me. I'm going to be young and reckless forever! Let the number of posts related to binge drinking and poor hygiene continue! YOLO!

Matt J - zero. Matt J Ego - minus one

It finally happened! I reached another record low!

I usually cook meals in bulk so that I don't have to cook very often throughout the week. So when I do occasionally make a meal, it'll be enough to supply the entire house with nutrition. Today was special though because I had 1kg of beef mince to make spaghetti out of. I cooked it all, but was unable to eat even 10% of it. I couldn't find any container in the house big enough to hold the leftovers until I discovered the discarded 4L sour cream bucket that had been taken from the White House. I re-purposed the bucket and left it in the fridge for later. I'm not too ashamed of this so far - in fact, i'm kinda proud. It's what happened next which i'm not too happy about. Later on that day I pulled the bucket out of the fridge to snack on the cold meal some more (it was cold because it wouldn't fit in the microwave and I couldn't be bothered cleaning a plate). As i'm walking toward the couch duel wielding the bucket and an empty jar of Pasta sauce (which I had re-purposed into a glass of water), I slipped on something on the ground. Fortunately I had my priorities right and I caught hold of the bucket and let the jar fall freely to the ground. The glass jar didn't break, but the water sprayed all over my shirt. I also noticed a little pasta spillage by the side of he bucket, so I decided to quickly fix it by licking the rim of the tub. To me, I thought i looked like a hungry uni student who just fumbled to the floor. However, to my roommate I looked like a dog covered in water, on hands and knees and eating scraps out of a bucket by the toilet. My dog, Molly, would have been proud.

In other news, my Thesis due date is coming up! It looks like i'm going to have it finished on time, no problem. However, UNSW has just made a recent decision (like 3 days ago, recent) to upgrade their educational system to a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). This may not sound like much, but it leaves a shiiiit tonne of potential research to evaluate. Hopefully I can do this before the 7th.

food

For the longest time I've wanted to be a vegetarian for moral reasons, but the longest I've gone without eating meat is a week. That may not sound impressive, but it's a big deal for me. I usually can't commit myself to anything for more than a few hours - just take a look at all the sports I've gotten involved in. I've decided that a more practical solution is to reduce eating meat or become a pescetarian. The obvious moral contradictions with Prescetarianism (you can't eat meat, but you can eat fish) doesn't bother me too much because I view fish as the gingers of our society - it's OK to punish them because they have no souls. The downside to my diet revolution is putting a bit more effort into making myself food in the kitchen, and I could no longer go to McDonald's after a night out and order the Mc.CowonaBun.

My thesis is due in 3 weeks! AHHHH

Боже мой я люблю Зака Эфрона

So I just realized that I have a statistics tab on my blog. It shows me who looks at my blog, how often and where from. I looked it up to see which countries I get most of my views from. It turns out that Australia and America provides a few views. But that figure is drowned by the sea of Russian viewers who read my blog. I don't think anybody was expecting that. I don't think any individual is that bored/depressed to read about someones life who he will never meet, so I reckon this is probably some old soviet computer which is scanning all computers in democratic countries to give the former USSR a distinct advantage during the cold war. However, I don't really know Russian people so maybe there is a guy in Moscow reading this post right now. So I reckon he's earned a personalized letter. Firstly, I think it's a safe bet that the person is male and that his name is Yuri.

Dearest Yuri,

Я надеюсь, вам понравится австралийского образа жизни. Это позор, вы никогда не получите, чтобы увидеть это лично. Я на самом деле не алкогольные я, кажется. На самом деле я бродяга, который живет в доме. Фиолетовый обезьяны посудомоечная машина блин.

From your hero,
Matthew James

Alright. I'm 10 minutes late for a class so lets make this quick. Umm, I did 2 lab reports a thesis meeting and a quiz on monday. I've got a shit tonne of work to get done by Thursday and Friday. After that I plan to collapse on the couch and undertake a very lazy and unhealthy movie marathon. Need to re watch every Star Wars movie in preparation for the new Star Wars movie coming out!! Lets hope Zac Efron plays the protagonist! *Fan girl scream*

Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

I'm tired

Religion

No I'm not going to start a rant. I just finished watching a video in the University as part Islam awareness week. The description on the flyer made me think it was going to be a lecture by a main speaker about abortion- like it was yesterday. Instead they played an under-budget film with substandard actors with a plot line composed entirely of exhausted cliches. The protagonist - a single, poor, jobless, pregnant woman stranded in New York city contemplates getting an abortion. Then the woman realizes after talking with a kind, trusting, religious gentleman that having the baby is the best decision ever. The credits were the best though. It showed a 5 minute clip of the baby 5 years later running along a beach with the mom smiling and singing next to her dream partner.

Well, I guess that settles it, I'm convinced. Not getting an abortion is fucking awesome.

It turns out that the movie was really just preaching to the coir though because when they asked for feedback from the audience Everyone (and I mean everyone) gave a fantastic review and talked about how it so accurately represents 'societies one dimensional nature for pro abortion'.

Furious and a little bored, I put up my hand and gave my full rant. I talked about how the movie misrepresented the other side of the argument and I talked about how the movie used unfair persuasion tactics (like dramatic music) to push a very bias agenda against abortion. The entire theater turned around and looked at me with confused eyes. It's at that moment that I realized almost everyone was wearing the same yellow T-shirt. They were all volunteers for the pro life campaign around UNSW. A few figure heads tried to create a rebuttal against my argument, but didn't get far because the Pizza had just arrived. I was saved again by the delicious, cheesy, greasy bell.

Tomorrows lecture is at 1:00pm and it's about same sex marriage. No doubt there will be some religious figure head trying to push the naturalist argument against homosexuality. But he won't get far, because wherever religious indoctrination spreads, Atheist man and Agnostic boy (Goddamn, I wish I had a sidekick) will be there! Just look for the secular sign in the clouds! (the secular sign is just a giant penis).