Google has coded this awesome website where you can make your own movie using Google Docs. I made one here:
http://goo.gl/HMpIzj
In other news I'm getting closer to planning my trip to Europe and Asia. I've payed the deposit for Everest and I'm probably going to book my flights to Indonesia tomorrow. I'm a little concerned about going to Sumatra to climb Mt. Kerinci because there are no registered companies that organize the 4 day hike for you. Instead tourists are forced to contact individual guides to walk them up the mountain. Whilst my experience of living in Indonesia has led me to believe that locals are very trustworthy and friendly, I'm still very scared of arriving in Padang Airport with nobody there to meet us.
Also, I have two new roommates now! There's so much to mention that I'll have to leave this for another massive post next time. Spoiler: they're German and Italian just like the last crew.
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Saturday, November 15, 2014
Tough Mudder
I ran a 19 kilometer obstacle course today called Tough Mudder. It was awesome! It wasn't too crowded and it was very challenging. A lot of the early obstacles were super easy - just climbing over walls or walking through mud. But by the end I was pushed to the limit with 3 obstacles. One of them - called 'Leap of Faith' - featured an old fashioned Navy net that had its lowest end elevated to about 2m above your head and and about 4m in front of you. But the hardest part wasn't jumping and reaching the lowest rung of the net. The hardest part was climbing the net using only your upper body strength.
Another obstacle was a essentially a manlyafied version of monkey bars. You had to swing from suspended ring to suspended ring to get from one side to the other. Sadly this was the only obstacle I didn't make :( - hardly anyone did. The rings were widely spaced that it was impossible to gather the momentum to swing to the next ring. Your only hope was to do it in one go - practically jumping through the air and hoping to get the grip and angle necessary to grab the next ring.
The last obstacle was what many may have perceived to be the easiest, yet ironically was the hardest. All you had to do was run in a straight line trying to dodge dangling electrodes. There were so may that it was impossible to dodge all the electrodes so I just decided to sprint through. Half way through the pit I thought it was a piece of cake, I could barely feel a thing, and I thought to myself if there was any chance of me being stung it wouldn't sting more than one of those prank electric pens you can get for $10. Then it hit me. It was as if Zues himself punched me in the heart. The jolt forced me to jump into the air like a rag doll and shout out the worlds "AHHHHHHHHH!! FUCK!!" at the top of my lungs. It retrospect it was actually quite funny because there were a bunch of kids spectating this final obstacle by the finish line. At the time though, I was only focused on the giant surge of adrenaline coursing through my veins which made me leap out of the pit straight through the finish line like a badass.
Another obstacle was a essentially a manlyafied version of monkey bars. You had to swing from suspended ring to suspended ring to get from one side to the other. Sadly this was the only obstacle I didn't make :( - hardly anyone did. The rings were widely spaced that it was impossible to gather the momentum to swing to the next ring. Your only hope was to do it in one go - practically jumping through the air and hoping to get the grip and angle necessary to grab the next ring.
The last obstacle was what many may have perceived to be the easiest, yet ironically was the hardest. All you had to do was run in a straight line trying to dodge dangling electrodes. There were so may that it was impossible to dodge all the electrodes so I just decided to sprint through. Half way through the pit I thought it was a piece of cake, I could barely feel a thing, and I thought to myself if there was any chance of me being stung it wouldn't sting more than one of those prank electric pens you can get for $10. Then it hit me. It was as if Zues himself punched me in the heart. The jolt forced me to jump into the air like a rag doll and shout out the worlds "AHHHHHHHHH!! FUCK!!" at the top of my lungs. It retrospect it was actually quite funny because there were a bunch of kids spectating this final obstacle by the finish line. At the time though, I was only focused on the giant surge of adrenaline coursing through my veins which made me leap out of the pit straight through the finish line like a badass.
Monday, November 10, 2014
Molly
On November 10th at 4:30pm we put Molly down. Our dog was born in 1997 so she was 17 years old - a very old age for a Labrador. Within the last year she had a seizure and was diagnosed with a liver tumor. For far too long we have been fighting nature by trying to keep her going with medication and scrupulous care & support. By the end though, despite my Mum and Dad taking care of her with undying passion, she had lost control of her legs, could barely see, hear, move or even go to the bathroom.
Over the last 17 years she'd developed quite a unique character. Here are a few things that made her special:
1) She never needed a leash. Even when she was a puppy with boundless energy she would always come sprinting back to us.
2) At first she hated swimming, but like the trooper she was, she learned to dive into the water and swim with the fishes. She always tried to catch the fish she saw in the water. Even though she was very smart I don't think she ever learned that bouncing around through the waves actually reduced her chances of catching a fish.
3) Whilst she had many names including; santoh, moless, poodle, smooshie, smooshie poodle, smooshie poodle pie etc etc, she would respond enthusiastically to any name said in a high enough pitch.
4) She hated almost all other dogs but loved my Mum and Dad more than anything - and that includes schmackos doggy treats.
5) She once jumped out of a moving boat to try and swim with dolphins in the middle of the ocean.
6) Molly had a minor fear of cats ever since she was attacked by one in Jakarta
7) We used to go on beach trips to Sambolo in Indonesia. My brother and I would use her as a pillow for the long car ride down. Although we were always there for at least 3 days, she would exhaust all her energy running around on the first 2 days and spend the last day completely motionless in the car waiting for us to drive her home.
8) Towards the end, she would sleep with her tongue lazily protruding from her mouth. Somehow it made her even more cute.
On her last day I was both glad and disappointed to see that Molly was relatively vibrant. I was glad because I knew her last day would be a happy one and because I knew we were putting her down before she mentally and physically deteriorated any further. But I was also disappointed because I had this nagging emotional voice in the back of my head yelling at me saying "she can go on a bit longer!". Reason won in the end. She had a full life and died peacefully right next to the people she loved.
RIP Molly. I'll never forget you.
Over the last 17 years she'd developed quite a unique character. Here are a few things that made her special:
1) She never needed a leash. Even when she was a puppy with boundless energy she would always come sprinting back to us.
2) At first she hated swimming, but like the trooper she was, she learned to dive into the water and swim with the fishes. She always tried to catch the fish she saw in the water. Even though she was very smart I don't think she ever learned that bouncing around through the waves actually reduced her chances of catching a fish.
3) Whilst she had many names including; santoh, moless, poodle, smooshie, smooshie poodle, smooshie poodle pie etc etc, she would respond enthusiastically to any name said in a high enough pitch.
4) She hated almost all other dogs but loved my Mum and Dad more than anything - and that includes schmackos doggy treats.
5) She once jumped out of a moving boat to try and swim with dolphins in the middle of the ocean.
6) Molly had a minor fear of cats ever since she was attacked by one in Jakarta
7) We used to go on beach trips to Sambolo in Indonesia. My brother and I would use her as a pillow for the long car ride down. Although we were always there for at least 3 days, she would exhaust all her energy running around on the first 2 days and spend the last day completely motionless in the car waiting for us to drive her home.
8) Towards the end, she would sleep with her tongue lazily protruding from her mouth. Somehow it made her even more cute.
On her last day I was both glad and disappointed to see that Molly was relatively vibrant. I was glad because I knew her last day would be a happy one and because I knew we were putting her down before she mentally and physically deteriorated any further. But I was also disappointed because I had this nagging emotional voice in the back of my head yelling at me saying "she can go on a bit longer!". Reason won in the end. She had a full life and died peacefully right next to the people she loved.
RIP Molly. I'll never forget you.
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Avoca and Volleyball
Woah it's been a while since I've written on this thing. If you find a series of typos, that's just because I've forgotten how to type.
Well lets see, what did I last write on this blog? I could probably just read my previous post, but that'll be boring. I'll assume I haven't told you guys about Avoca or this new sport I've gotten myself involved in.
Ok ok so Matt Gates finally managed to organize a trip to Avoca. About 15 people showed up and it was awesome. There was plenty of food, beer and sun. The view was tremendous too - it really made me think of how awesome it would be live by the beach. I honestly don't think I could ever get bored of it. Towards the end of he weekend however, we noticed a bunch of blue bottles washed up on the shore. In case you don't know, blue bottles are the scorpions of the sea - they're jellyfish that act like little blue mines that bob up and down in the sea. If you touch one of their tentacles you can get an extremely painful sting. I witnessed from afar an Asian woman who was confidently marching over thousands of these dehydrated blue bottles without a care in the world. She was either confident as hell or completely color blind.
I recently (well, like 5 weeks ago) joined the volleyball team for UNSW. It's quite nice. The people are very friendly and welcoming and I'm learning some good skills. It frustrates me a little bit that our 'coach' is a 22 year old volleyball veteran who can barely play volleyball himself, but it's not a big deal since we still get to play for a couple of hours after training.
I also recently signed up for a 1/2 year membership to the CBVA (Coogee Beach Volleyball Association). This gives me access to join training sessions and play games with other members 4 days a week. I played for 3 hours yesterday which was heaps of fun. God mustn't have wanted me to join though because my face is now painted a light red.
In other news, I've had 0 progress with my website. My website designer guy has decided to go AWOL, taking all code to my website and also $100 with it. Not the biggest loss, but it's still a nasty set back. I tried to teach myself entrepreneurial skills via YouTube in attempt to motivate me to keep going. Sadly however, YouTube is filled with unhelpful crap in this sector of online education. Every video I clicked on (and this includes videos from top tier Universities) offered no useful advice. Most of them just stuck to overused sport related cliches - "you've got to want to succeed in your company as bad as you want to breath!" and "when you look in the mirror, you should see success!" were two of my of my favorites. I guess entrepreneurship is too broad an area to learn via YouTube.
I've been desperately trying to get Nepal organized. It's not easy though because my friend, Matt, is infamously hard to organize. The recent snow storm that killed 54 (I think it's 54) people recently is no doubt going to cause more indecision. Either way, I'm going to go. As practice for high altitude climbing, I've decided to try and breath less on a daily basis. I don't think it's working though, I just feel dizzy most of the time.
Last week was a very strange week for me because one of the PhD students had their computer catch fire over the weekend. About 1/4 of the office was drenched in water because of the automatic sprinklers which went off. Unfortunately my desk was in that area of the office covered in water. It turned out to be a good thing though because it gave me the opportunity to work from home which was a refreshing break.
Well lets see, what did I last write on this blog? I could probably just read my previous post, but that'll be boring. I'll assume I haven't told you guys about Avoca or this new sport I've gotten myself involved in.
Ok ok so Matt Gates finally managed to organize a trip to Avoca. About 15 people showed up and it was awesome. There was plenty of food, beer and sun. The view was tremendous too - it really made me think of how awesome it would be live by the beach. I honestly don't think I could ever get bored of it. Towards the end of he weekend however, we noticed a bunch of blue bottles washed up on the shore. In case you don't know, blue bottles are the scorpions of the sea - they're jellyfish that act like little blue mines that bob up and down in the sea. If you touch one of their tentacles you can get an extremely painful sting. I witnessed from afar an Asian woman who was confidently marching over thousands of these dehydrated blue bottles without a care in the world. She was either confident as hell or completely color blind.
I recently (well, like 5 weeks ago) joined the volleyball team for UNSW. It's quite nice. The people are very friendly and welcoming and I'm learning some good skills. It frustrates me a little bit that our 'coach' is a 22 year old volleyball veteran who can barely play volleyball himself, but it's not a big deal since we still get to play for a couple of hours after training.
I also recently signed up for a 1/2 year membership to the CBVA (Coogee Beach Volleyball Association). This gives me access to join training sessions and play games with other members 4 days a week. I played for 3 hours yesterday which was heaps of fun. God mustn't have wanted me to join though because my face is now painted a light red.
In other news, I've had 0 progress with my website. My website designer guy has decided to go AWOL, taking all code to my website and also $100 with it. Not the biggest loss, but it's still a nasty set back. I tried to teach myself entrepreneurial skills via YouTube in attempt to motivate me to keep going. Sadly however, YouTube is filled with unhelpful crap in this sector of online education. Every video I clicked on (and this includes videos from top tier Universities) offered no useful advice. Most of them just stuck to overused sport related cliches - "you've got to want to succeed in your company as bad as you want to breath!" and "when you look in the mirror, you should see success!" were two of my of my favorites. I guess entrepreneurship is too broad an area to learn via YouTube.
I've been desperately trying to get Nepal organized. It's not easy though because my friend, Matt, is infamously hard to organize. The recent snow storm that killed 54 (I think it's 54) people recently is no doubt going to cause more indecision. Either way, I'm going to go. As practice for high altitude climbing, I've decided to try and breath less on a daily basis. I don't think it's working though, I just feel dizzy most of the time.
Last week was a very strange week for me because one of the PhD students had their computer catch fire over the weekend. About 1/4 of the office was drenched in water because of the automatic sprinklers which went off. Unfortunately my desk was in that area of the office covered in water. It turned out to be a good thing though because it gave me the opportunity to work from home which was a refreshing break.
Saturday, September 6, 2014
International Roommates
Jonas and Alberto have been gone for a few weeks now. The house is no longer stained with dirty bowls and cutlery, but it's also a whole lot more boring. Jasper and Lachie usually work in the evenings and have very independent social lives so it's as if they're not really living here. In an attempt to jump start the social life of the house I've taken it upon myself to invite everyone to 'Double Steak Tuesdays' at the Doncaster Pub or buy a blow up pool for Summer! It's not really catching on though because sadly my Australian roommates aren't as excited by things like 'Double Steak Tuesday' as I am - it's their loss really, it's awesome value.
Ah well, I'm glad I taught Jonas and Alberto a little bit of Australian culture while they were here. They learned that no one wins the Australian game of drink, not even Australians. Hopefully I'll be able to meet up with Jonas in February next year in Germany as part of a spontaneous trip I'm going to eventually organize in January.
Jonas described to me a whole bunch of German drinking games, but we never had the people or resources to play them. It'll be really rewarding to learn these important life skills first hand. Strangely enough, Lachie and I invented a drinking game earlier today while he was waiting for a program called "steam" to install on his computer. All you have to do is drink at the same speed as the application being downloaded. Because Australia's internet is so bi-polar this makes the whole thing much more challenging than you think. Also, if you screw up then you have to Skull your drink. Now that's a 21st century 1st world drinking game if ever I've heard one!
Lastly, I just came back from a village party I managed to get invited to. I left early once I realized that a few first-years I tutored last year were there. Man I'm old!
Ah well, I'm glad I taught Jonas and Alberto a little bit of Australian culture while they were here. They learned that no one wins the Australian game of drink, not even Australians. Hopefully I'll be able to meet up with Jonas in February next year in Germany as part of a spontaneous trip I'm going to eventually organize in January.
Jonas described to me a whole bunch of German drinking games, but we never had the people or resources to play them. It'll be really rewarding to learn these important life skills first hand. Strangely enough, Lachie and I invented a drinking game earlier today while he was waiting for a program called "steam" to install on his computer. All you have to do is drink at the same speed as the application being downloaded. Because Australia's internet is so bi-polar this makes the whole thing much more challenging than you think. Also, if you screw up then you have to Skull your drink. Now that's a 21st century 1st world drinking game if ever I've heard one!
Lastly, I just came back from a village party I managed to get invited to. I left early once I realized that a few first-years I tutored last year were there. Man I'm old!
Monday, September 1, 2014
International Trips
A friend of mine from Texas is currently in Australia. He arrived last week and is currently staying in a hostel in Kings Cross. I picked him up from the airport on a Monday morning at 6am before I had work and as a gift he had got me a bottle of fine whisky from the duty free. I think I noticed him holding onto the bottle a little too tightly as he handed it to me - clearly some regret was forming in his mind once he realized alcohol is 23 times more expensive in Australia. That Wednesday, we went drinking at the Wanderer which is a great pub in Central to celebrate his birthday. The drinks were cheap (because my roommate was working there), the company was good, and the music was awesome. Sadly though, I think I'm kinda failing at my responsibility to be a good tour guide to Australia - I'm at work on the weekdays and he wants to go clubbing on the weekends. It was actually kind of disappointing to find out in the car that he didn't want to do any cultural activities in Sydney - he just wanted to get wasted every night. I dunno, my policy when I travel to somewhere new is to do the touristy stuff in the morning when you're sober, then fill in the gaps of time with alcohol.
This reminds me, I'm planning a trip to Indonesia early next year. I'm planning on meeting up with my Spanish friend who recently got a job in an embassy in Jakarta! I really don't have the specifics sorted yet. Actually I don't have the over arching picture ready yet either. But at this point, I'm thinking of hitting S.E. Asia first, then heading to Qatar and maybe a few carefully selected places in the Middle East, and finishing it off with Eastern Europe. I've been guilt tripped into experiencing Istanbul by a work colleague of mine. We'll see how awesome it is. I really wanted to fit Canada or California in there somewhere, but they're just too far away :( Why can't the world be shaped differently :(
This reminds me, I'm planning a trip to Indonesia early next year. I'm planning on meeting up with my Spanish friend who recently got a job in an embassy in Jakarta! I really don't have the specifics sorted yet. Actually I don't have the over arching picture ready yet either. But at this point, I'm thinking of hitting S.E. Asia first, then heading to Qatar and maybe a few carefully selected places in the Middle East, and finishing it off with Eastern Europe. I've been guilt tripped into experiencing Istanbul by a work colleague of mine. We'll see how awesome it is. I really wanted to fit Canada or California in there somewhere, but they're just too far away :( Why can't the world be shaped differently :(
Friday, August 22, 2014
Ice Bucket Challenge
On the 19th August 2014 I did the ALS Ice Bucket challenge. It's a challenge spreading like wildfire through Facebook. A person nominates 3 people and they have to either donate $10 to the ALS charity or pour ice water over themselves and nominate 3 other people. The decision needs to be made in 24 hours. After contemplating in 'the thinker' position for a couple of hours, I decided to walk down to the nearest BP station and buy a $5 bag of ice. I'm an evil person.
The procedure only lasted 3 seconds, but felt like an eternity. My heartbeat slowed and I felt every bone in my body chill and crack. My breath got fainter and fainter and for a while I didn't think I was going to make it. In my delirious state I played this song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMqfWoFjgto) through my head a thousand times to give me the mental strength I needed to push through the ordeal.
The deed was done.
The procedure only lasted 3 seconds, but felt like an eternity. My heartbeat slowed and I felt every bone in my body chill and crack. My breath got fainter and fainter and for a while I didn't think I was going to make it. In my delirious state I played this song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMqfWoFjgto) through my head a thousand times to give me the mental strength I needed to push through the ordeal.
The deed was done.
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Hunter Valley
Did you know that there is a word in German for the specific type of pain you get when your left earlobe hurts? Why don't we have a word like that in English? We should have a word which describes that pain! After living with international students for a while now I've started to learn how dreadfully inefficient English is. 1) Some words sound the same but are spelled differently (like "no" and "know") 2) We have silent letters jammed into other words (like "know") 3) sentences whilst clear and easy to understand can still technically be grammatically incorrect (like "You know I no like chocolate"). Now I know I definitely haven't mastered the English language, but from what I do know, I can tell ya it's pretty limited. In my personal opinion, I think we should all abandon English and switch to sign language and grunting. Or if society won't allow me to do that, then fuck it, I'm learning French.
I just came back from the hunter valley today. It was awesome sauce. The food was awesome. The company was good and the bike riding was adventurous. About a week ago, I didn't think "Adventurous" would be the word I thought I'd use to describe what I thought would be a relaxing day of cycling between wineyards and trying different wines. But when you see the News title "Rain-magedon" the same day you drive up to the Hunter you start to change your expectations a lil' bit. It did rain quite a lot on Saturday, but not enough to close any wineries or roads. The plan was to ride a full loop around a bike trail, but one member of our group (let's call him "Tom Mayfield"), despite having weeks of warning, decided that now was the time to tell us that he couldn't ride a bike. God complimented Tom's timing by unzipping his pants and pissing down water at the exact same time. Fortunately, things did get better. Over time the rain got less severe and Toms bike riding got better with more wine. Even though we only made 1/4 of the route we were planning to ride around we still managed to enjoy a shit tonne of wine. Mission complete! In the morning the weather was much better so Jonas, Alberto and I rode the entire bike trail including a good lookout just to make the most of our bikes before we had to return them by 12. Then, after we checked out we visited a few more distilleries and wineries. Yep so it looks like everything worked out after all. Oh, except for the part where I rode my bike into a wall of barbed wire and got slashes up and down my right and left arms. EXTREME!
Oh yeah, a little bit of tension has been building up in the house recently over the mess that has slowly been piling up in the sink. I've suggested public whipping to the person that doesn't clean his/her plate. My idea was down-voted 0 - 6 (even I down-voted it). But now that I've put more thought into it, I've realized that public whipping could be a great way to bond 5/6ths of the house together and make the house cleaner. Bring back the whip!
I just came back from the hunter valley today. It was awesome sauce. The food was awesome. The company was good and the bike riding was adventurous. About a week ago, I didn't think "Adventurous" would be the word I thought I'd use to describe what I thought would be a relaxing day of cycling between wineyards and trying different wines. But when you see the News title "Rain-magedon" the same day you drive up to the Hunter you start to change your expectations a lil' bit. It did rain quite a lot on Saturday, but not enough to close any wineries or roads. The plan was to ride a full loop around a bike trail, but one member of our group (let's call him "Tom Mayfield"), despite having weeks of warning, decided that now was the time to tell us that he couldn't ride a bike. God complimented Tom's timing by unzipping his pants and pissing down water at the exact same time. Fortunately, things did get better. Over time the rain got less severe and Toms bike riding got better with more wine. Even though we only made 1/4 of the route we were planning to ride around we still managed to enjoy a shit tonne of wine. Mission complete! In the morning the weather was much better so Jonas, Alberto and I rode the entire bike trail including a good lookout just to make the most of our bikes before we had to return them by 12. Then, after we checked out we visited a few more distilleries and wineries. Yep so it looks like everything worked out after all. Oh, except for the part where I rode my bike into a wall of barbed wire and got slashes up and down my right and left arms. EXTREME!
Oh yeah, a little bit of tension has been building up in the house recently over the mess that has slowly been piling up in the sink. I've suggested public whipping to the person that doesn't clean his/her plate. My idea was down-voted 0 - 6 (even I down-voted it). But now that I've put more thought into it, I've realized that public whipping could be a great way to bond 5/6ths of the house together and make the house cleaner. Bring back the whip!
Monday, August 11, 2014
City2Surf
I ran the City2Surf race yesterday. I'm still out of breath. I woke up at 7:10am for a 7:55 start in the red group. It may have been optimistic of me to think I'd be able to get there on time, but it was definitely stupid of me to press the snooze button when I heard my phone alarm go off. I had sprinted down to the bus stop and was waiting impatiently for the bus to get to its destination (Hyde Park) when I heard the gun go off. By the way, Red group is at the front of the 70,000 people, and it's usually filled with mostly super fit athletes and a small mix of unfit and unprepared idiots like me. I got off the bus early and sprinted down oxford st to join the Red group before it was too late. I approached a side entrance where a crowed control officer was filtering out runners from watchers. I was already so tired from sprinting from Oxford st that I could only manage to wheeze out the words "I'm.. in.. red.. group.. can I get through.. (deep breath) please..?". After sharing a glimpse of disgust and sympathy, the guy pulled the gate open and let me through. Almost all the runners had already crossed the start line at this point, so I was the last guy to cross the start line while panting furiously with the camera pointing at my face. The race itself was good though. I somehow managed to run the whole thing and got a final time of 1 hour and 15 minutes. I think this is my worst time yet, but I'm not too surprised. After all, your dignity isn't the only thing you lose when you sit down 7 hours a day in an office.
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Life is a video game
Day 234234
Reinforcements have arrived. Today we got our dishwasher fixed. Finally the cutting boards, bowls and cutlery that served as the breeding grounds for the cockroaches will be swept clean. We can finally take back what was once ours - a kitchen free of infestation. Our first assault will be at 0900. My roommates are resting for the day ahead, God knows they'll need it...
In other news my hunter valley trip is getting nearer and nearer. I'm very excited. This weekend off will be the closest thing to a holiday that I've had since the start of the year. It's just my roommates and a friend of mine from Pymble driving up there for a few days of good ol wine drinking and site seeing. We're actually bringing up German food as preventative hangover cure. Most of it I'm guessing will be German sausage so I guess the weekend trip will be a sausage fest in more than one way.
Hanging out with only my roommates and a few select friends from up north all the time really gets me thinking about my deteriorating social life. I'm seriously one boring Saturday night away from Googling how to make friends. But my track record for doing research through Google for school / uni projects makes me think I'll inevitably end up watching YouTube videos of Pokemon or reading an mildly interesting Wikipedia article about Vegemite.
I know I keep hammering on about this every blog, but I really wish there were more post uni activities for people fresh out in the real world. Perhaps something simple like 'international onesie week' would be a refreshing way to meet people. I think it'll be really cool to have a African American friend who's not actually American (just black). I think I'd get so much street cred without even trying - it's like the cheat code to popularity.
So I'm sure I must have mentioned at some point in a previous post that I view life kinda like a high graphics video game that's more boring than GTA but more interesting than Tetris. I still cling to this world view by the way. It keeps me super vigilant about the possibility of a zombie breakout. Which reminds me, why do people in Zombie films write fancy dramatic sayings like "The End Is Nigh" or "Muuuurrrdeeerrrr" across the wall in blood? Why wouldn't you communicate something more meaningful like "Food this way ---->" or something. Also, why do they write in blood? This is a zombie Apocalypse we're talking about, not some world wide shortage of pens. And if they're so rushed to write a message that they're forced to write in blood, why don't they just run? I dunno, these questions and more I think will never be solved :(
But alas this is not the only time I've been confused by the actions of a computer. I found myself typing on Microsoft word yesterday and a word I had typed up had been underlined in that squiggly red line we're all familiar too with. I was sure the word was spelled correctly so I right clicked to see if I could get rid of that red underline. Instead Microsoft word insisted I "ignore once". WTF Microsoft? What's with the ambiguous threat? What if I want to ignore it twice? Bring it on computer, game on.
Reinforcements have arrived. Today we got our dishwasher fixed. Finally the cutting boards, bowls and cutlery that served as the breeding grounds for the cockroaches will be swept clean. We can finally take back what was once ours - a kitchen free of infestation. Our first assault will be at 0900. My roommates are resting for the day ahead, God knows they'll need it...
In other news my hunter valley trip is getting nearer and nearer. I'm very excited. This weekend off will be the closest thing to a holiday that I've had since the start of the year. It's just my roommates and a friend of mine from Pymble driving up there for a few days of good ol wine drinking and site seeing. We're actually bringing up German food as preventative hangover cure. Most of it I'm guessing will be German sausage so I guess the weekend trip will be a sausage fest in more than one way.
Hanging out with only my roommates and a few select friends from up north all the time really gets me thinking about my deteriorating social life. I'm seriously one boring Saturday night away from Googling how to make friends. But my track record for doing research through Google for school / uni projects makes me think I'll inevitably end up watching YouTube videos of Pokemon or reading an mildly interesting Wikipedia article about Vegemite.
I know I keep hammering on about this every blog, but I really wish there were more post uni activities for people fresh out in the real world. Perhaps something simple like 'international onesie week' would be a refreshing way to meet people. I think it'll be really cool to have a African American friend who's not actually American (just black). I think I'd get so much street cred without even trying - it's like the cheat code to popularity.
So I'm sure I must have mentioned at some point in a previous post that I view life kinda like a high graphics video game that's more boring than GTA but more interesting than Tetris. I still cling to this world view by the way. It keeps me super vigilant about the possibility of a zombie breakout. Which reminds me, why do people in Zombie films write fancy dramatic sayings like "The End Is Nigh" or "Muuuurrrdeeerrrr" across the wall in blood? Why wouldn't you communicate something more meaningful like "Food this way ---->" or something. Also, why do they write in blood? This is a zombie Apocalypse we're talking about, not some world wide shortage of pens. And if they're so rushed to write a message that they're forced to write in blood, why don't they just run? I dunno, these questions and more I think will never be solved :(
But alas this is not the only time I've been confused by the actions of a computer. I found myself typing on Microsoft word yesterday and a word I had typed up had been underlined in that squiggly red line we're all familiar too with. I was sure the word was spelled correctly so I right clicked to see if I could get rid of that red underline. Instead Microsoft word insisted I "ignore once". WTF Microsoft? What's with the ambiguous threat? What if I want to ignore it twice? Bring it on computer, game on.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
WWII
Day 9394
I've been poisoned. I'm unsure if it's the cockroaches, mosquitoes, bed bugs or maggots but either way they found a way to hit me where it hurts; my body. I got food poisoning last Wednesday from a restaurant in the city. Whatever I ate took 4 hours to settle in my stomach before it evolved into the gut punching ninja it is now. There's been an eerie silence on the Western front for weeks and I know now that it's because the insects have been communicating with international forces. It won't be long until the house is infested with insects. May God have mercy on us all.
Seriously though, I did actually get food poisoning. It wasn't cool. Imagine pinching your ear lobe as hard as you can, that's what it felt like - except replace the ear with your stomach and replace the pinching with searing pain!
In other news I managed to find two people to move into Jasper and lachies room. One of them is an Italian named Alberto and the other is a German called Jonas. I guess now our house has become symbolic of WW2 because Hibbert is English, Susan is American, Tom is Austrlian, and I'm 1/3 French, 1/3 Polish and 1/3 Russian.
I'm really disappointed that my Italian roommate doesn't know how to cook. I asked him to teach me to make a special type of pasta, but he said he didn't know and recommended I just look online :(. On the upside, theNazi German taught me to make Pork Schnitzle and Spaetzle with a white wine sauce. It was amazing! It was like having 20 boxes of cereal in one bowl. I managed to teach him a few Australian meals in return - Vegemite on toast, Domino's Pizza, Chicken Schnitzel and Sushi.
I've been poisoned. I'm unsure if it's the cockroaches, mosquitoes, bed bugs or maggots but either way they found a way to hit me where it hurts; my body. I got food poisoning last Wednesday from a restaurant in the city. Whatever I ate took 4 hours to settle in my stomach before it evolved into the gut punching ninja it is now. There's been an eerie silence on the Western front for weeks and I know now that it's because the insects have been communicating with international forces. It won't be long until the house is infested with insects. May God have mercy on us all.
Seriously though, I did actually get food poisoning. It wasn't cool. Imagine pinching your ear lobe as hard as you can, that's what it felt like - except replace the ear with your stomach and replace the pinching with searing pain!
In other news I managed to find two people to move into Jasper and lachies room. One of them is an Italian named Alberto and the other is a German called Jonas. I guess now our house has become symbolic of WW2 because Hibbert is English, Susan is American, Tom is Austrlian, and I'm 1/3 French, 1/3 Polish and 1/3 Russian.
I'm really disappointed that my Italian roommate doesn't know how to cook. I asked him to teach me to make a special type of pasta, but he said he didn't know and recommended I just look online :(. On the upside, the
Friday, July 4, 2014
Still in Australia :D
I recently faced the hard cold fact that my blog isn’t really about expressing myself, entertaining others, or exaggerating my drinking tolerance. The main reason I write here is so that future matt can relive young Matt’s experiences. It’s because of this that I’ve decide to dedicate this post to communicate where I am in my life, where I think I’m going, and what I think is influencing me. Now I know you must be thinking “Gee, Matt. If you really care about future Matt that much, why don’t you contribute more to your superannuation, or take out a loan and by property, or just eat at least one healthy meal a week”? And to that I say; “umm, uhh… maybe next week?”
Let’s start with some context.
1) Russia has found Stalin’s Dairy and mindlessly obeyed a direct order to invade part of Ukraine. The take-over was non-violent and completely successful (note, this is all I know after seeing simplified cartoons of this situation on the internet). I’m not really concerned though because my childhood experiences of playing ‘Risk’ has convinced me that no one can hold Ukraine – there’s just too many entrance points from Asia and Europe!
2) The world cup is being played in Brazil and my roommates are currently watching most games live. Even though they were passionately optimistic of Australia’s chances, I knew there was a 99 out of 99 chance they’d lose.
3) I’m currently lying on Coogee Beach (which is mostly deserted because it’s winter) watching the waves gently roll up to my fingertips and then disappear into the sand below as I write this blog on a notepad. I guess if you randomly find 3 sentences missing or crudely written, then that’s because I got water on that section of the paper.
And now a little bit about me currently
1) I’ve found YouTube videos consume 90% of my time. And because I know I’ll never be able to stop the addiction I’ve decided to make the most of the situation by changing the types of YouTube videos I watch. Recently I’ve been watching inspiring clips which are from successful people/ movies giving advice. One of them said “The sum of all your previous experiences, all your conscious choices and all your efforts combine to make you the person you are today and have put you in the place you are right now”. Whilst I could tell that this was meant to be an inspiring statement, I couldn’t help but feel demotivated listening to it from my phone in my right hand while searching unsuccessfully for a full roll of toilet paper in the public bathroom with my left hand.
2) The other 10% of my time is spent working, chilling with my roommates or playing computer games locked up in my room. The work I do at the moment is quite uninspiring and the house has become very quiet since Jasper and Lachie have left. Overall I feel like I’m in a very stagnate period of my life – I’m not challenging myself academically, not meeting different people, not involving myself in sport, nothing. My parents don’t understand why I don’t just get more involved in the community and I don’t understand either – my best guess is a mix of 2 things: a massive change in culture bought upon by the internet and also crippling laziness. That being said, I have been working on my own company recently. I’ve been making content (albeit slowly) which I plan to upload to my site. I’m paying a computer scientist $450 to make the site. Hopefully this will give me the challenge I need to pull myself out of this slump.
3) I met a woman the other day who said she liked Shakespeare because of how he communicates human emotion so beautifully. She went on to say that HSC English prepared her with useful skills which she will continue to use in the future. This really made me reflect on how my high school English classes had left me completely unprepared all the English literary technique analysis that I come across in my daily life. Pfffttt, no! Please! I think Shakespeare is an overanalysed con artist who made up a few words and got way to much credit for it.
Consider this sentence:
Consider this sentence:
“I woke up at 9:00 and took the biggest dump ever! About 40 minutes later I started drinking with my friend Timmy. We made a few fart jokes that were super clever”
This is how a mathematician would read that passage:
9:00 he took a poo
9:40 he started drinking with Timmy
This is how an English teacher would read that passage:
The passage is a metaphor for the eternal human struggle. The story of Christianity is told through the use of powerful symbolism. 9:00 denotes genesis where Adam commits the original sin. Once leaving the house (symbolic for heaven), he meets Timmy who consoles him about his mortal suffering. Clearly Timmy is a metaphor for Jesus. The final rhyme between the words “ever” and “clever” binds the story together and reinforces the idea that humanity can find eternal wisdom through the use of Jesus Christ.
9:00 he took a poo
9:40 he started drinking with Timmy
This is how an English teacher would read that passage:
The passage is a metaphor for the eternal human struggle. The story of Christianity is told through the use of powerful symbolism. 9:00 denotes genesis where Adam commits the original sin. Once leaving the house (symbolic for heaven), he meets Timmy who consoles him about his mortal suffering. Clearly Timmy is a metaphor for Jesus. The final rhyme between the words “ever” and “clever” binds the story together and reinforces the idea that humanity can find eternal wisdom through the use of Jesus Christ.
4) Anywho, I’m pretty tired now so I’m going to end this blog early and just mention that Google Glass looks really cool! Even though I’d never find any real practical benefit of using them, I want them anyway. I can’t wait till Apple comes up with their own knockoff idea – the iEye (or I’mshit)
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Graduation
I have my graduation ceremony on the 12th. After 5 long years of study I’ve accumulated all the skills I need to get a job in an Engineering company. I can use these skills to meet interesting people, go interesting places, and slowly begin my ascent up the corporate mountain. Along my journey I’ll get married, start a family and get a dog named ‘Sniffles’. Once my bank account is inflated enough to comfortably support myself and my family I’ll invest more of my time playing golf, drinking fine wine and making small of the cuff remarks to colleagues about the intellectual inefficiencies of the lower class. By the time I’ve reached retirement, technology would have reached such a level that my brain can be preserved in a vat of green bubbling liquid while my body lives on through the mechanical movements of a gold plated robot.
I can go on, but I think the sarcasm is transparent enough. Whoever ends up reading this crappy blog must really have a lot of patience with me. I mean, I hardly say anything worth any value. Let me test that patience with this post. Watch this YouTube video all the way through:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSxihhBzCjk
Did you watch it? I know you didn't… here let me write it again. Watch it this time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSxihhBzCjk
That's better. Now write an essay about how the swimming pool in the background is a metaphor for the destructive effects of capitalism. Did you do it? No? That’s OK. I wasn’t going to read it anyway. I hate essays.
Now I know what you’re thinking. “Oh here we go again. Matt’s going to rage against the machine and be all pessimistic and shit.” Yeah, Ok, I am going to do that. But I’ll do that towards the end. That way I’ll give you guys a bit of a break.
Ok ok ok ok. I need to think of something non related to my future. Something non… related… to… my… GOT IT! OK OK! So Africa and Pablo (two Spanish peeps that studied in Australia a while back) invited me to go to London in 3 weeks. How awesome would that be! I would really love to go! I feel like a kid again asking my mum if I can play xbox with my neighbours. Except, you know, in this case my neighbours live like 17 million meters away. It would be so awesome to just throw my desk papers up in the air on a Monday morning and shout out “fuck it, I’m going to England!” But sadly reality is a harsh mistress. I’ll have to inform Pablo and Africa about my new found sanity and let them know I won’t make it. Besides, the next place I want to travel to is not England, it’s Kentucky. I simply have to know what they call “KFC” over there. Do they just call it “FC”? And how do they pronounce it? It seems a little inappropriate to me.
In other news I’m contemplating moving out a whole lot more. A pretty strange thing to do considering I just signed a year lease about a week ago. Jasper and Lachie are behaving themselves a lot more, but I still feel quite disconnected from the rest of the house and I guess I just want an abrupt change. I’m honestly entertaining the idea even though the distance I’d have to travel to work would be significantly more. I can imagine myself stepping outside of the house; encumbered by carrying all my clothes under my arms. The weight of the baggage and our beer bottle polluted front yard would make me look like an astronaut taking his first steps on the surface of the moon. “One Small step for Matt. Three thousand steps for Matt to walk to work”. I don’t know, maybe this is just a phase I’m going through. Who am I kidding, I’ve get a priceless Pac-man bottle cap artwork in my room which I can’t abandon.
I worked till 9:00pm last night trying to fix up a particular bug in my coding. I couldn't find out what the problem was so I just gave up and trotted home. In cases like that it’s nice to have a house so close. To my surprise work is actually getting much easier. I'm finding that time kinda balloons itself into one giant bubble and then bursts by the time 5:00pm pops up on the bottom right of my computer monitor. I'm unsure if I'm gaining productivity this way or losing the sporadic bursts of inspiration that I used to get. Either way, I can't help but be reminded of this scene from the music video 'Do the evolution' by Pearl Jam.
Ok so I've absent mindedly gone back to pessimistic Matt. I guess it was inevitable. Time to rage.
I guess the first thing I want to confess is that the holy book I've been reading ever since early high school has shown me the way to truth. I'm talking ofcourse about the Dilbert Comics. The great book of Dilbert was right. The prophesy has come true! Working in an office in a square cubical is dehumanizing and boring. Superiors aren't always capable of making good decisions. And most importantly, Engineers are furious at the vacuous crap that oozes out of the mouths of art students.
I'm also hating Facebook more and more too. Don't worry I'm not hopping on the bandwagon here (I'm still a hipster, guys). I don't hate Facebook because of it's surveillance on the public - I actually support that - I hate Facebook because of how everyone is turning their wall into a plaque filled with awards. That's for Linked-In guys! Not for Facebook.
Also, I'm genuinely frustrated at how society has a tendency to group people by age bracket like sheep and assort them into different pens. It seems like if your under 20 you must get a good grade in high school and either learn a skill or go to Uni. If you're between 25 and 30 you must have started on a career and be looking upward. But if you're 30 or higher you need to have a family or be working on one. I kinda wish people learned for the sake of learning. There's so much delicious information out there and it's belittled by simply learning it for the sake of practical application.
Lastly, I found out recently that a French exchange student reads every one of my blogs. I'm impressed you can put yourself through this much torture just to see whats going on in my life. I feel like I need to reward you somehow with some advice. Ok, how about this? Go to the nearest French Google office and tell them that they should start spelling 'Google' as 'Googel'. It'll sound extra French and the rest of the world will love you for it. You're welcome :)
I can go on, but I think the sarcasm is transparent enough. Whoever ends up reading this crappy blog must really have a lot of patience with me. I mean, I hardly say anything worth any value. Let me test that patience with this post. Watch this YouTube video all the way through:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSxihhBzCjk
Did you watch it? I know you didn't… here let me write it again. Watch it this time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSxihhBzCjk
That's better. Now write an essay about how the swimming pool in the background is a metaphor for the destructive effects of capitalism. Did you do it? No? That’s OK. I wasn’t going to read it anyway. I hate essays.
Now I know what you’re thinking. “Oh here we go again. Matt’s going to rage against the machine and be all pessimistic and shit.” Yeah, Ok, I am going to do that. But I’ll do that towards the end. That way I’ll give you guys a bit of a break.
Ok ok ok ok. I need to think of something non related to my future. Something non… related… to… my… GOT IT! OK OK! So Africa and Pablo (two Spanish peeps that studied in Australia a while back) invited me to go to London in 3 weeks. How awesome would that be! I would really love to go! I feel like a kid again asking my mum if I can play xbox with my neighbours. Except, you know, in this case my neighbours live like 17 million meters away. It would be so awesome to just throw my desk papers up in the air on a Monday morning and shout out “fuck it, I’m going to England!” But sadly reality is a harsh mistress. I’ll have to inform Pablo and Africa about my new found sanity and let them know I won’t make it. Besides, the next place I want to travel to is not England, it’s Kentucky. I simply have to know what they call “KFC” over there. Do they just call it “FC”? And how do they pronounce it? It seems a little inappropriate to me.
In other news I’m contemplating moving out a whole lot more. A pretty strange thing to do considering I just signed a year lease about a week ago. Jasper and Lachie are behaving themselves a lot more, but I still feel quite disconnected from the rest of the house and I guess I just want an abrupt change. I’m honestly entertaining the idea even though the distance I’d have to travel to work would be significantly more. I can imagine myself stepping outside of the house; encumbered by carrying all my clothes under my arms. The weight of the baggage and our beer bottle polluted front yard would make me look like an astronaut taking his first steps on the surface of the moon. “One Small step for Matt. Three thousand steps for Matt to walk to work”. I don’t know, maybe this is just a phase I’m going through. Who am I kidding, I’ve get a priceless Pac-man bottle cap artwork in my room which I can’t abandon.
I worked till 9:00pm last night trying to fix up a particular bug in my coding. I couldn't find out what the problem was so I just gave up and trotted home. In cases like that it’s nice to have a house so close. To my surprise work is actually getting much easier. I'm finding that time kinda balloons itself into one giant bubble and then bursts by the time 5:00pm pops up on the bottom right of my computer monitor. I'm unsure if I'm gaining productivity this way or losing the sporadic bursts of inspiration that I used to get. Either way, I can't help but be reminded of this scene from the music video 'Do the evolution' by Pearl Jam.
Ok so I've absent mindedly gone back to pessimistic Matt. I guess it was inevitable. Time to rage.
I guess the first thing I want to confess is that the holy book I've been reading ever since early high school has shown me the way to truth. I'm talking ofcourse about the Dilbert Comics. The great book of Dilbert was right. The prophesy has come true! Working in an office in a square cubical is dehumanizing and boring. Superiors aren't always capable of making good decisions. And most importantly, Engineers are furious at the vacuous crap that oozes out of the mouths of art students.
I'm also hating Facebook more and more too. Don't worry I'm not hopping on the bandwagon here (I'm still a hipster, guys). I don't hate Facebook because of it's surveillance on the public - I actually support that - I hate Facebook because of how everyone is turning their wall into a plaque filled with awards. That's for Linked-In guys! Not for Facebook.
Also, I'm genuinely frustrated at how society has a tendency to group people by age bracket like sheep and assort them into different pens. It seems like if your under 20 you must get a good grade in high school and either learn a skill or go to Uni. If you're between 25 and 30 you must have started on a career and be looking upward. But if you're 30 or higher you need to have a family or be working on one. I kinda wish people learned for the sake of learning. There's so much delicious information out there and it's belittled by simply learning it for the sake of practical application.
Lastly, I found out recently that a French exchange student reads every one of my blogs. I'm impressed you can put yourself through this much torture just to see whats going on in my life. I feel like I need to reward you somehow with some advice. Ok, how about this? Go to the nearest French Google office and tell them that they should start spelling 'Google' as 'Googel'. It'll sound extra French and the rest of the world will love you for it. You're welcome :)
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Bieber
The last few weeks have been a bizarre mesh of events for me. I have to deal with mind numbing boredom for the most part of my day while simultaneously having quick and rapid bursts of creative thought. Almost every day after work I find myself scribbling away in a corner of my room hatching a new idea that could be part of a company I hope to create in the future. I guess the proper term to diagnose me would be 'business bi polar'.
During my lunch break I met up with Ed (a brother of a friend of mine from way back). I heard he did graphic design and had some website creation skills. The meet up was short and sweet - he told me what he could do, what he couldn't and what pay he would like. Something non related to business stuck with me after we had split ways though. He mentioned casually that I looked "weathered". I'd usually shrug something like that off without a second thought and put it down to having one too few cappuccinos in the morning. But strangely I've been having a lot of people tell me that recently. It's also strange how everyone manages to find a new synonym to keep me on my toes. I guess eventually they'll run out of words and the problem will solve itself.
I wonder if it's a result of my new haircut. I've decided not to cut my hair as of February for a few reasons. 1) To save money in preparation for Tony Abbott’s budget cuts and 2) To try something new - I figure this will be the only time in my life where I can get away with long filthy hair. The only downside is, I've gone through the itchy faze, the greasy faze and the semi mullet faze, but now I'm going through the awkward moment where my hair is long enough to just wrap around and scratch my eyes faze. I feel like a teenage pop star due to the amount of times I have to swipe my hair left or right.
During my lunch break I met up with Ed (a brother of a friend of mine from way back). I heard he did graphic design and had some website creation skills. The meet up was short and sweet - he told me what he could do, what he couldn't and what pay he would like. Something non related to business stuck with me after we had split ways though. He mentioned casually that I looked "weathered". I'd usually shrug something like that off without a second thought and put it down to having one too few cappuccinos in the morning. But strangely I've been having a lot of people tell me that recently. It's also strange how everyone manages to find a new synonym to keep me on my toes. I guess eventually they'll run out of words and the problem will solve itself.
I wonder if it's a result of my new haircut. I've decided not to cut my hair as of February for a few reasons. 1) To save money in preparation for Tony Abbott’s budget cuts and 2) To try something new - I figure this will be the only time in my life where I can get away with long filthy hair. The only downside is, I've gone through the itchy faze, the greasy faze and the semi mullet faze, but now I'm going through the awkward moment where my hair is long enough to just wrap around and scratch my eyes faze. I feel like a teenage pop star due to the amount of times I have to swipe my hair left or right.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Birthday blues
It was my birthday a few weeks back. I'm now 24. I didn't have a party and instead had a nice dinner with my parents, my brother and 2 friends from up North. It was nice, but I was kinda hoping for a party to compliment it. In early March I made a Facebook event for a party which would be held on a Saturday sometime in April. Sadly however, the invites never got sent out to anyone since apparently April was a too demanding month for my roomies...
The big two four isn't concerning me as much as I thought it would. Maybe it's because I know for a fact that Tom feels insecure about his age - he's 27 and hence the oldest in the house. I managed to settle his fears earlier today by claiming Andy (the couch bum aged 31) is officially the oldest resident in the house.
I vaguely remember getting drunk with Hibbert and Susan a few days ago and telling them that 'I wanted to get punched in the face'. At the time, I was trying to communicate that I wanted to feel some youthful exuberance before I got older. But for all the right reasons, they thought I was seeking some masochistic pleasure. After a painful 20 minutes of discussion I finally managed to get them see what I meant. For the record, I don't actually want to be punched in the face, I just want to ward off the seductive call of the corporate world for as long as I can.
My anxiety about getting older isn't what has been worrying me too much as of late. What's been occupying my mind most of all is this feeling of inadequacy which I can't seem to shake. Apparently I've been carrying my insecurities about my intelligence for at least the last 17 years. I've been reading 3 independent psychological reviews that were conducted on me at varying ages in my past. The common trends in all of them are: 1) Poor comprehension 2) Poor memory 3) Poor concentration and 4) A low self esteem. I can only wonder how being put well outside the glamorous Da Vinci program in English and many other subjects affected these 4 things. On the bright side though, I managed to tell the psychologist "I bet you compliment everyone's drawings, not just mine" right after he complimented my drawing of a stick figure. Pretty badass for a 7 year old, right?
I suspect this anxiety has made me quite hypersensitive towards my roommates. Jasper and Lachie are both kind and interesting people when talking to me individually. However, they mutate into very different people when around other company. In a group of people Lachie will tend to take advantage of my passive behavior and be more sarcastic and rude towards me. It's nothing too cruel - after all, most of his calls are memorized one liners my brother gave to him when he was living here. Japser, however, talks about me behind my back and will typically resort to more physical forms of embarrassment. He mocks my clumsy and aloof nature with his village friends and sometimes pinches me discreetly as I walk past him because he knows I won't make a scene in front of other people. At first I dismissed this as simple immaturity and attention seeking, but as of a month ago, I started cracking the whip. Well, I guess it would be more of an elastic band than a whip. I've spoken to Lachie and Jasper both individually and together about this in the hope that they would be more rational than irrational. I was wrong. Although I've convinced Jasper to stop physically hurting me, they're persistent that I'm overacting and that it's all in good fun. They keep telling me that I should 'fight back'. Even if I did want to fight fire with fire, I don't have the wit, social skills or communication skills to do so. More over, I really don't want to! I shouldn't have to be an asshole to stop being treated like an asshole. Even if it is in good fun, they should respect a roommates desire not to get mocked. Right? My patience is running thin, and off the cuff jokes about my intelligence is starting to make my blood boil. I'm afraid that if I can't convince these two to stop treating me this way, I might explode in rage at a seemingly innocent joke about my intelligence.
In other news, Jasper was surprisingly well behaved when we went down to Jervis Bay to go camping with one other guy. It was a bit of a sausage fest (both literally and metaphorically - we had sausages every meal), but it was still really great to spend close to 8 hours a day on a beach soaking up the sun. I found the sound of waves crashing on the sand a relaxing break from the high frequency hum of the air conditioner in my office.
Where was I? Oh that's right, I was having a massive winge. Sorry, I'll talk about more interesting stuff like places I've been and different alcohols I've drunk in a later blog. For now, it's all about feelings n' shit.
These latest events have really made me seriously consider moving out. A few things are chaining me back to the Animal House though.
1) If I move out and move in with people with real ambition, then I can say goodbye to Uni parties forever.
2) I have pretty much no other 'friends'
3) I'll be one step closer to walking into the jaws of 'The Machine'. (Obviously 'The Machine' is run by 'The Man').
4) My dad thinks I should move out
Either way a short term solution is needed. I need a good middle ground between my socially stunted Engineering PhD colleagues and my roommates. I need to get more involved with the community. I'll also try and dig up some embarrassing stories about Jasper and Lachie. Because this time, it's personal.
The big two four isn't concerning me as much as I thought it would. Maybe it's because I know for a fact that Tom feels insecure about his age - he's 27 and hence the oldest in the house. I managed to settle his fears earlier today by claiming Andy (the couch bum aged 31) is officially the oldest resident in the house.
I vaguely remember getting drunk with Hibbert and Susan a few days ago and telling them that 'I wanted to get punched in the face'. At the time, I was trying to communicate that I wanted to feel some youthful exuberance before I got older. But for all the right reasons, they thought I was seeking some masochistic pleasure. After a painful 20 minutes of discussion I finally managed to get them see what I meant. For the record, I don't actually want to be punched in the face, I just want to ward off the seductive call of the corporate world for as long as I can.
My anxiety about getting older isn't what has been worrying me too much as of late. What's been occupying my mind most of all is this feeling of inadequacy which I can't seem to shake. Apparently I've been carrying my insecurities about my intelligence for at least the last 17 years. I've been reading 3 independent psychological reviews that were conducted on me at varying ages in my past. The common trends in all of them are: 1) Poor comprehension 2) Poor memory 3) Poor concentration and 4) A low self esteem. I can only wonder how being put well outside the glamorous Da Vinci program in English and many other subjects affected these 4 things. On the bright side though, I managed to tell the psychologist "I bet you compliment everyone's drawings, not just mine" right after he complimented my drawing of a stick figure. Pretty badass for a 7 year old, right?
I suspect this anxiety has made me quite hypersensitive towards my roommates. Jasper and Lachie are both kind and interesting people when talking to me individually. However, they mutate into very different people when around other company. In a group of people Lachie will tend to take advantage of my passive behavior and be more sarcastic and rude towards me. It's nothing too cruel - after all, most of his calls are memorized one liners my brother gave to him when he was living here. Japser, however, talks about me behind my back and will typically resort to more physical forms of embarrassment. He mocks my clumsy and aloof nature with his village friends and sometimes pinches me discreetly as I walk past him because he knows I won't make a scene in front of other people. At first I dismissed this as simple immaturity and attention seeking, but as of a month ago, I started cracking the whip. Well, I guess it would be more of an elastic band than a whip. I've spoken to Lachie and Jasper both individually and together about this in the hope that they would be more rational than irrational. I was wrong. Although I've convinced Jasper to stop physically hurting me, they're persistent that I'm overacting and that it's all in good fun. They keep telling me that I should 'fight back'. Even if I did want to fight fire with fire, I don't have the wit, social skills or communication skills to do so. More over, I really don't want to! I shouldn't have to be an asshole to stop being treated like an asshole. Even if it is in good fun, they should respect a roommates desire not to get mocked. Right? My patience is running thin, and off the cuff jokes about my intelligence is starting to make my blood boil. I'm afraid that if I can't convince these two to stop treating me this way, I might explode in rage at a seemingly innocent joke about my intelligence.
In other news, Jasper was surprisingly well behaved when we went down to Jervis Bay to go camping with one other guy. It was a bit of a sausage fest (both literally and metaphorically - we had sausages every meal), but it was still really great to spend close to 8 hours a day on a beach soaking up the sun. I found the sound of waves crashing on the sand a relaxing break from the high frequency hum of the air conditioner in my office.
Where was I? Oh that's right, I was having a massive winge. Sorry, I'll talk about more interesting stuff like places I've been and different alcohols I've drunk in a later blog. For now, it's all about feelings n' shit.
These latest events have really made me seriously consider moving out. A few things are chaining me back to the Animal House though.
1) If I move out and move in with people with real ambition, then I can say goodbye to Uni parties forever.
2) I have pretty much no other 'friends'
3) I'll be one step closer to walking into the jaws of 'The Machine'. (Obviously 'The Machine' is run by 'The Man').
4) My dad thinks I should move out
Either way a short term solution is needed. I need a good middle ground between my socially stunted Engineering PhD colleagues and my roommates. I need to get more involved with the community. I'll also try and dig up some embarrassing stories about Jasper and Lachie. Because this time, it's personal.
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Pizza! (I know that doesn't really describe this post very well, but I figured it's attention grabbing and it sounds nice)
I went to the beach a week ago. It was a bright Saturday morning. The sunlight was so bright that if you listened carefully you could hear the flies and small bugs sizzling in the distance. I'm perfectly aware of how white I am, so I decided to pack a bucket of sunscreen with me. Wait wait wait, there's a joke here somewhere - ok ok, I'm so white that the sunscreen I put on was a darker shade than my skin! Ok, shut up at least I'm trying some impromptu comedy. I'm sorry if I don't spend every waking hour thinking of ways to be funny on my blog. Where was I? Oh yeah, I was being barbecued on the sand. When I went to work the following Monday, one of my work colleagues had the observation skills to not just notice that I was wearing sunglasses while I got sunburned, but also realize the exact type of brand of sunglasses I was wearing too! The aviator signature had burned a small tattoo into my face.
Umm what else? Oh yeah! I'm expanding my horizons and improving n' shit. I've decided that I'm going to learn how to cook a few different foods. I made homemade pizza the other day (with a pre made base of course). I added sooooo many ingredients and it actually turned out really well! Olives, eggplant, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, cheese, prawns, mushrooms, tomato paste, and fetta cheese sprinkled on top - it had it all! My parallel universe slob clone would be proud and my parallel universe high achiever clone would be reluctantly sympathetic.
Speaking of improving n' shit, I've been growing my hair out for ages now. At least 6 weeks I think. I want to claim that it's a post modern fashion statement, but secretly I just like the idea of achieving really long hair. I guess it'll be good to look back in a couple of years and be able to physically identify my lowest point in my life.
Andy is back too! He was on our couch for about a month not paying rent then traveled to Melbourne in search for a job. I guess it didn't go so well because he's back in Sydney and has already started moving the food from some of the shelves to make room for his clothes and tooth brush. I personally like the guy a lot even though my roommates are losing patience. I know he's probably just being nice to me so he can feel more welcome in our house, but it's still nice to have someone to chat with during and after work.
Oh yeah! Most importantly I've got a job with SpoonFeedMe! It's not a full time job, I just work 5 hours/ week on top of my current job. I'm happy with the arrangement because it'll be a good way to test out the company. My first task has been to investigate equipment to buy for the company to make good quality videos. I definitely invested a few more than 5 hours of my time into this, but I don't really mind since I'm being payed $30/hour. Plus I really want to do a good job because it's a $7000 decision! Dan is a very organized and intelligent bloke - he's pretty much a Jewish version of Josh Kelson.
Speaking of Josh, I still haven't met up with him since he moved about 15 minutes drive away. It's a shame because I really liked the idea of working with him on weekends to build his website.
Umm what else? Oh yeah! I'm expanding my horizons and improving n' shit. I've decided that I'm going to learn how to cook a few different foods. I made homemade pizza the other day (with a pre made base of course). I added sooooo many ingredients and it actually turned out really well! Olives, eggplant, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, cheese, prawns, mushrooms, tomato paste, and fetta cheese sprinkled on top - it had it all! My parallel universe slob clone would be proud and my parallel universe high achiever clone would be reluctantly sympathetic.
Speaking of improving n' shit, I've been growing my hair out for ages now. At least 6 weeks I think. I want to claim that it's a post modern fashion statement, but secretly I just like the idea of achieving really long hair. I guess it'll be good to look back in a couple of years and be able to physically identify my lowest point in my life.
Andy is back too! He was on our couch for about a month not paying rent then traveled to Melbourne in search for a job. I guess it didn't go so well because he's back in Sydney and has already started moving the food from some of the shelves to make room for his clothes and tooth brush. I personally like the guy a lot even though my roommates are losing patience. I know he's probably just being nice to me so he can feel more welcome in our house, but it's still nice to have someone to chat with during and after work.
Oh yeah! Most importantly I've got a job with SpoonFeedMe! It's not a full time job, I just work 5 hours/ week on top of my current job. I'm happy with the arrangement because it'll be a good way to test out the company. My first task has been to investigate equipment to buy for the company to make good quality videos. I definitely invested a few more than 5 hours of my time into this, but I don't really mind since I'm being payed $30/hour. Plus I really want to do a good job because it's a $7000 decision! Dan is a very organized and intelligent bloke - he's pretty much a Jewish version of Josh Kelson.
Speaking of Josh, I still haven't met up with him since he moved about 15 minutes drive away. It's a shame because I really liked the idea of working with him on weekends to build his website.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
The NSA will never get me!
An interesting controversial subject that has grabbed my attention recently is internet privacy. I usually pride myself on being indifferent about such matters until I know enough information, but now I feel I know enough to warrant an opinion. I definitely don't align myself with the radical views of Julian Assange, but I do have a few views in common. In particular, I'm scared that the legal punishment for committing misdemeanors will remain fixed despite a growing transparency in private lives. Let me explain. Laws should ideally be made to prevent immoral activities. So consider, for example, hopping on a bus without a ticket and getting caught by the cops. A fine of $150 seems reasonable (from the states point of view) since it will do very well at preventing you (and others) from hopping on buses without a ticket. However, the number 150 is actually pretty arbitrary and i'd suspect a likely overestimate trying to compensate for all the times you've probably ridden the bus without a ticket but haven't been caught. This is a necessary thing to do since Sydney Transport doesn't have eyes all over the place which can tell them when people are abusing their system.
However, lets say that a sudden recent development in technology allows Sydney Transport to observe every passenger and instantly fine them for not having a ticket. What would this mean? Well, I'd suspect you'd get a lot of fines and a lot fewer people riding without tickets! All good right? NO! This is where the arbitrary origin of the $150 fine really comes into play. Imagine the subset of passengers that forgot to buy a ticket or had no money to pay for a ticket - these people are still victims of the unalterable $150 fine. I'm not trying to say that these people shouldn't be fined at all, I'm trying to say that the law needs to consider what fee is necessary to prevent illegal activity in different situations. Clearly the $150 fine isn't applicable in this hypothetical since a fine just a little bit higher than the price of the ticket itself would be enough of a deterrent. Basically, laws need to evolve with evolving technology.
Don't worry, this isn't a complete side track, this is actually all related to internet freedoms. In fact, I think this analogy is actually pretty accurate at representing the issues with the internet. Except, in this case, the bus fine is $2000 dollars and the cops can choose whether to target your or not.
My life is entirely transparent to anyone who has an internet connection. I check Facebook regularly, the videos I like on YouTube are put on display on my Google+ account, I write a blog, and I don't even delete my browser history. If the Australian government wanted to, they could sift through all the crap I've done and pick me up on a few misdemeanors - like downloading mp3 files off YouTube. Radicals like Julian Assange promote Government openness and individual privacy as a solution to this problem. I don't think we need to have complete anonymity, I think we need legal tolerance. Oh by the way, this doesn't just apply to just downloading movies and textbooks, this extends into all areas of online private life. I've been warned by countless members of my family not to mention any negative experiences about my work on my blog because it would make me look unattractive to other potential employers. In their eyes they see it as so little gain for so much potential loss. I kinda get that, but it's the principal that annoys me. A potential employer shouldn't resort to a highly exaggerated and (lets face it) somewhat fictional blog to find out the work ethic of an applicant. And more importantly, even if my blog was the source of relevant information about my work ethic, it really wouldn't give the employer the information necessary to compare me to other applicants since the other applicants could have cherry picked their online history and built a completely fake version of themselves.
Overall, it annoys me that a growing number of my friends are informing me that they find themselves culling pictures of themselves on Facebook to appear more attractive to a potential employer. Ultimately it probably doesn't bother them too much, but what they're doing is fueling an illogical thought process that's running rampant throughout society. Stahp it!
In other news, I didn't get drunk on Sunday! I know, i know! I got soooooooooo sober! A bloke called Andy who has been crashing on our couch for the last 2 weeks recently won $200 from a sporting bet and spent half of it on booze for the whole house on Saturday. It was fun. I passed out in a bathtub.
However, lets say that a sudden recent development in technology allows Sydney Transport to observe every passenger and instantly fine them for not having a ticket. What would this mean? Well, I'd suspect you'd get a lot of fines and a lot fewer people riding without tickets! All good right? NO! This is where the arbitrary origin of the $150 fine really comes into play. Imagine the subset of passengers that forgot to buy a ticket or had no money to pay for a ticket - these people are still victims of the unalterable $150 fine. I'm not trying to say that these people shouldn't be fined at all, I'm trying to say that the law needs to consider what fee is necessary to prevent illegal activity in different situations. Clearly the $150 fine isn't applicable in this hypothetical since a fine just a little bit higher than the price of the ticket itself would be enough of a deterrent. Basically, laws need to evolve with evolving technology.
Don't worry, this isn't a complete side track, this is actually all related to internet freedoms. In fact, I think this analogy is actually pretty accurate at representing the issues with the internet. Except, in this case, the bus fine is $2000 dollars and the cops can choose whether to target your or not.
My life is entirely transparent to anyone who has an internet connection. I check Facebook regularly, the videos I like on YouTube are put on display on my Google+ account, I write a blog, and I don't even delete my browser history. If the Australian government wanted to, they could sift through all the crap I've done and pick me up on a few misdemeanors - like downloading mp3 files off YouTube. Radicals like Julian Assange promote Government openness and individual privacy as a solution to this problem. I don't think we need to have complete anonymity, I think we need legal tolerance. Oh by the way, this doesn't just apply to just downloading movies and textbooks, this extends into all areas of online private life. I've been warned by countless members of my family not to mention any negative experiences about my work on my blog because it would make me look unattractive to other potential employers. In their eyes they see it as so little gain for so much potential loss. I kinda get that, but it's the principal that annoys me. A potential employer shouldn't resort to a highly exaggerated and (lets face it) somewhat fictional blog to find out the work ethic of an applicant. And more importantly, even if my blog was the source of relevant information about my work ethic, it really wouldn't give the employer the information necessary to compare me to other applicants since the other applicants could have cherry picked their online history and built a completely fake version of themselves.
Overall, it annoys me that a growing number of my friends are informing me that they find themselves culling pictures of themselves on Facebook to appear more attractive to a potential employer. Ultimately it probably doesn't bother them too much, but what they're doing is fueling an illogical thought process that's running rampant throughout society. Stahp it!
In other news, I didn't get drunk on Sunday! I know, i know! I got soooooooooo sober! A bloke called Andy who has been crashing on our couch for the last 2 weeks recently won $200 from a sporting bet and spent half of it on booze for the whole house on Saturday. It was fun. I passed out in a bathtub.
Monday, March 10, 2014
rags to riches
In the early years of world war 2, Joseph Stalin implemented his Scorched Earth policy whereby he destroyed his own territory to hinder the advance of the Nazi's. It's this type of ruthless military progress which I've learned to adopt to defeat the 'bed bugs' in my room. I recently purchased a 500ml bottle of rubbing alcohol and doused my infested mattress with it. If you listened closely, I think you could hear the tiny fuckers screaming. Or were they singing in drunken bliss? I don't know, but either way it took a lot of inner restraint for me to hold back on getting a match out and casually letting the room burn.
I also purchased an automatic poison dispenser which I've put in my room to kill any moths or remaining bed bugs wandering around. Hitler would be proud.
In other news, I met Josh in Penrith the other day after work. We talked about his new up and coming idea. I'm not sure how much he'd want me to say, but I can tell you that he's working on his own website for psychology. There's a long way to go and I'm skeptical about how successful it will be, but if there is anyone I know who has the drive to actually accomplish a 'get rich quick' scheme, it would be Josh. Matt Gates and I might be hijacking this train since I've got my Engineering videos on offer and Matt has a couple of philosophy videos he can offer too. I think this'll be an interesting project to work on this year.
Work is going OK now. University has started and little kids are running everywhere. I took a 15 minute break and crashed a physics lecture by one of my favorite teachers of all time, Joe Wolfe. It was kinda nice to re-immerse myself in the lecture environment. It was strangely inspiring.
Aaaaaaaaaaand I'm out of beer. All my home brew is gone. I'm thinking of brewing wheat beer next, but 'country brewer' isn't a place you pass by on your way to work or Mc Donald's. I'll probably start brewing my next batch when it gets colder anyway. It'll make the beer taste better.
I also purchased an automatic poison dispenser which I've put in my room to kill any moths or remaining bed bugs wandering around. Hitler would be proud.
In other news, I met Josh in Penrith the other day after work. We talked about his new up and coming idea. I'm not sure how much he'd want me to say, but I can tell you that he's working on his own website for psychology. There's a long way to go and I'm skeptical about how successful it will be, but if there is anyone I know who has the drive to actually accomplish a 'get rich quick' scheme, it would be Josh. Matt Gates and I might be hijacking this train since I've got my Engineering videos on offer and Matt has a couple of philosophy videos he can offer too. I think this'll be an interesting project to work on this year.
Work is going OK now. University has started and little kids are running everywhere. I took a 15 minute break and crashed a physics lecture by one of my favorite teachers of all time, Joe Wolfe. It was kinda nice to re-immerse myself in the lecture environment. It was strangely inspiring.
Aaaaaaaaaaand I'm out of beer. All my home brew is gone. I'm thinking of brewing wheat beer next, but 'country brewer' isn't a place you pass by on your way to work or Mc Donald's. I'll probably start brewing my next batch when it gets colder anyway. It'll make the beer taste better.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
O - week
To celebrate two weeks of accidental sobriety I got pissed last Friday. I went to the Rege (pub near where I live) with my roommates and a few others. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but something was definitely different about the pub. For starters I was almost refused entrance for looking "glassy eyed" but then managed to talk my way out of it (it turns out begging and pleading works as a good negotiator). Once inside I noticed every middle aged, depressed and single man sipping on a beer that was usually there had been replaced with about fifteen 18 year old kids. Since graduating I've developed a pretty strong arrogance which has made me instantly devalue the conversation of any undergraduate i talk to. This turned out to be a good thing though because it meant I had no distractions to my drinking. Ideally I would have liked to drink in the outside section of the rege but a new house rule has been enforced which states that no one can drink any liquid in the outside section past 10:00pm. No doubt my brother getting glassed over the head a couple of months back had something to do with that - I guess both my brother and I have been glass eyed in the Rege now.
After a 2 day hangover I finally managed to summon up the energy to clean my filthy infested room. The inspiration was short lived though because I came to the realization that the largest shelf in my room was my floor, so I figured any square inch of floor space not covered with clothes would simply be a waste of space.
In other news Gim is back working at the office. Gim is a PhD student from Malaysia who works near me. He graduated at the same time I did, with the same degree I did, with academic grades and accomplishments I couldn't even dream of. He is literally better than me in every single way. He's also Christian which makes this intellectual standoff particularly interesting. It's like he has God on his side or something.
After a 2 day hangover I finally managed to summon up the energy to clean my filthy infested room. The inspiration was short lived though because I came to the realization that the largest shelf in my room was my floor, so I figured any square inch of floor space not covered with clothes would simply be a waste of space.
In other news Gim is back working at the office. Gim is a PhD student from Malaysia who works near me. He graduated at the same time I did, with the same degree I did, with academic grades and accomplishments I couldn't even dream of. He is literally better than me in every single way. He's also Christian which makes this intellectual standoff particularly interesting. It's like he has God on his side or something.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Everest
A Spanish friend of mine from way back, Africa, messaged me on Facebook yesterday asking me bluntly if I wanted to go on an adventure to another part of the world with her and Pablo. It's tough to sound overly enthusiastic on Facebook, but believe me I was. After about 7 seconds of brainstorming, Nepal was the winner. How bad-ass would it be to climb base camp of Mt. Everest? Hellz yeh. Maybe I should take up smoking to prepare my lungs for some harsh conditions?
So far I've done no research into it, but I plan to start today after work. It'll be good to break the Monday - Friday, 9 -5 routine. Albeit the trip wouldn't be till October ish 2014 so there's no need to start packing now.
Well that's it folks. I've literally done nothing else interesting in my life.
So far I've done no research into it, but I plan to start today after work. It'll be good to break the Monday - Friday, 9 -5 routine. Albeit the trip wouldn't be till October ish 2014 so there's no need to start packing now.
Well that's it folks. I've literally done nothing else interesting in my life.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
computer bugs
Day 3455: It's been one month since the bug bombs were set off. An aura of happiness and high moral set in with my roommates and I. After sweeping away the ashes of dead cockraoch carcass's we all made a pact to strive toward a new cleaner way of life. But the utopia was not to last. Corruption and laziness has set in once again, I can sometimes feel myself being corrupted and manipulated by the thick fog of laziness that pollutes the house. It's beginning to turn us against each other; now it's only a matter of time until the cockroaches grow in number and begin a second assault. More pressing matters are at hand though because another new type of insect has invaded our most personal living areas - our bedrooms. They're bugs and they live in my bed - I call them bed bugs. They've evolved to to fight a war on two fronts: Animal House is weak. I've tried buying new sheets and washing pillow cases, but even these high tech tactics are powerless to stop them. They're just so bloody fucking small! I just wanna smush them with my bare hands but I can't find them uurrghh!! War. War never changes...
So yeah this is actually pretty bad for me because I can't sleep. At least when we had to deal with a cockraoch infestation we could all sleep soundly at night. I'm tossing and turning non stop because I get the feeling of ants crawling all over my body - I also wake up with itchy marks over my arms and legs which aren't as itchy and pronounced as mosquito bites, but just as annoying. It doesn't help that my room is so hot that I turn into a hyperventilating warm sack of blood at night. I read somewhere that you can put rubbing alcohol on parts of your body to stop the bugs from biting you. Obviously I would never waste precious Alcohol that way, so maybe if I drank more alcohol, then the bed bugs won't be tempted to suck my blood? This all happened after the Germans left. Coincidence? I think not.
In other news, I've completely adapted to the 1950's way of life. My new routine is so predictable you can set an alarm to it (which I do).
1) I wake up at 8:49, press 'snooze' exactly 3 times to give me a bit over 1/2 an hour to get out of bed, then head to work.
2) At work I duck into the coffee room quickly to drink a glass of water on my way to my office
3) Listen to music and hum along with it a bit too loudly until my boss walks by and we share startled hello's
4) Come home at around 5 to find Harry sitting on the couch watching shit TV. We then play exactly 2 games of Nazi Zombies before I decide to make some shitty meal for myself.
5) At exactly 6:00 i decide i'm strangely tired and end up crashing on my infested bed for about an hour.
6) I then catch a glimpse of my tummy on some shinny object and feel sad. Then I head to the gym for about 15 minutes.
7) Come home and see Jasper/Lachie/Both in my room playing DOTA. I join them until midnight and then fall asleep.
Albiet somewhere in there, I do a very small amount of work trying to learn how to code JavaScript and make Engineering YouTube videos. This is actually more productive than you think because I have a small desire to start up my own Engineering website sometime soon.
Oh I should also mention that I've totally corrupted our newest roommate, Tom, by introducing him to the computer game DOTA. This means 4/6 of us play DOTA. We now have a voting majority. Goodbye House Parties, hello LAN parties!
Oh yeah, facebook did this thing recently where they showed you a video which summarized your entire life in 1 minute by giving you a montage of photos you've uploaded or been tagged in. Almost every photo featured someone else smiling in the foreground with me devouring snacks in the background. One of the photos which came up though was a screenshot I had made about 2 years ago. It was a montage of famous people in history with personalized quotes attached to each of them. This was a small artwork I'd made for fun, and I could tell I had a lot of creativity back then because I made every quotation read something stupid like "fuck bitches,get money!". Needless to say I dug up the virtual picture from my gmail and went to the printing department at UNSW to get a copy laminated asap. I now have a a poster of Winston Churchill quoting the line "Bitch, Please". I couldn't be happier.
Lastly, I met a bunch of Texans on the bus back to 17 middle from the City. They were really friendly and asked me where they should go before the start their exchange in 2 weeks. I told them to head to the blue mountains. They were really grateful. It was good reminiscing.
gg
So yeah this is actually pretty bad for me because I can't sleep. At least when we had to deal with a cockraoch infestation we could all sleep soundly at night. I'm tossing and turning non stop because I get the feeling of ants crawling all over my body - I also wake up with itchy marks over my arms and legs which aren't as itchy and pronounced as mosquito bites, but just as annoying. It doesn't help that my room is so hot that I turn into a hyperventilating warm sack of blood at night. I read somewhere that you can put rubbing alcohol on parts of your body to stop the bugs from biting you. Obviously I would never waste precious Alcohol that way, so maybe if I drank more alcohol, then the bed bugs won't be tempted to suck my blood? This all happened after the Germans left. Coincidence? I think not.
In other news, I've completely adapted to the 1950's way of life. My new routine is so predictable you can set an alarm to it (which I do).
1) I wake up at 8:49, press 'snooze' exactly 3 times to give me a bit over 1/2 an hour to get out of bed, then head to work.
2) At work I duck into the coffee room quickly to drink a glass of water on my way to my office
3) Listen to music and hum along with it a bit too loudly until my boss walks by and we share startled hello's
4) Come home at around 5 to find Harry sitting on the couch watching shit TV. We then play exactly 2 games of Nazi Zombies before I decide to make some shitty meal for myself.
5) At exactly 6:00 i decide i'm strangely tired and end up crashing on my infested bed for about an hour.
6) I then catch a glimpse of my tummy on some shinny object and feel sad. Then I head to the gym for about 15 minutes.
7) Come home and see Jasper/Lachie/Both in my room playing DOTA. I join them until midnight and then fall asleep.
Albiet somewhere in there, I do a very small amount of work trying to learn how to code JavaScript and make Engineering YouTube videos. This is actually more productive than you think because I have a small desire to start up my own Engineering website sometime soon.
Oh I should also mention that I've totally corrupted our newest roommate, Tom, by introducing him to the computer game DOTA. This means 4/6 of us play DOTA. We now have a voting majority. Goodbye House Parties, hello LAN parties!
Oh yeah, facebook did this thing recently where they showed you a video which summarized your entire life in 1 minute by giving you a montage of photos you've uploaded or been tagged in. Almost every photo featured someone else smiling in the foreground with me devouring snacks in the background. One of the photos which came up though was a screenshot I had made about 2 years ago. It was a montage of famous people in history with personalized quotes attached to each of them. This was a small artwork I'd made for fun, and I could tell I had a lot of creativity back then because I made every quotation read something stupid like "fuck bitches,get money!". Needless to say I dug up the virtual picture from my gmail and went to the printing department at UNSW to get a copy laminated asap. I now have a a poster of Winston Churchill quoting the line "Bitch, Please". I couldn't be happier.
Lastly, I met a bunch of Texans on the bus back to 17 middle from the City. They were really friendly and asked me where they should go before the start their exchange in 2 weeks. I told them to head to the blue mountains. They were really grateful. It was good reminiscing.
gg
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Back in Aus
I went to the beach a couple of days ago with my German roommates. I went because I wanted to get some fresh air and enjoy the rays. The Germans went because they needed a break from watching episode after episode of a world war two series called Generation War (spoiler: the Germans loose). The beach was crowded, but it was still nice to get a good break. I found out five hours later that I had missed putting sunscreen on random patches of my body. One of the red marks down my back looks just like the front cover of signs - I'm contemplating leaving it in the sun more so that'll look like a coloured tattoo.
Oh, random fun fact: Mango in salad tastes amazing! Not even kidding.
In other news, Jasper is back from South Africa. He payed 8 grand for a 1 month holiday in which he spend 2 of those weeks doing charity stuff. It's good to have someone organize the house again - the garbage was starting to pile up quite a lot.
Now I've been advised by my Uncle and Father that it's particularly unwise to talk about my feelings about my Job on my blog. Buuuuut I figured if any boss of mine has the time to read all the crap I write just to get to some commentary about my job, then the business is probably verging on bankruptcy so I'd probably lose the job regardless.
I've been given a cubical in the midst of an empty office on the highest floor in the Engineering department. My Employee number is 3290498 but my boss says I can move up to 3290497 if I play my cards right. The job itself is a cocktail of interesting, frustrating and boring. I often find that my short attention span gets hold of me and I subconsciously hover my curser over the facebook tab. I also spend roughly 20% of the time doing Engineer related stuff - this is the stuff I really like, it allows me to do research and talk to academics, but the other 20% of the time (60% is spent on facebook) I end up reviewing code. This is the stuff which isn't so fun because reading a whole bunch of 1's and 0's has the same value as reading twilight. Even though I haven't started mentally adjusting to the job yet, physically I'm almost there. I've already developed an ideal cubical slouch with a permanently relaxed jaw and a small breathing problem to match. It's come to the point where I no longer dream about independence and freedom of speech anymore; I dream about having a son who can fulfil the James legacy of working in a factory as part of the ford assembly line - ideally my son would have a slight genetic disability making him shorter and hunched over, I'll call him Günter.
Oh yeah, my computer is broken too so that means I'm forced to be productive. I got so much shit done today, it's awful
Oh, random fun fact: Mango in salad tastes amazing! Not even kidding.
In other news, Jasper is back from South Africa. He payed 8 grand for a 1 month holiday in which he spend 2 of those weeks doing charity stuff. It's good to have someone organize the house again - the garbage was starting to pile up quite a lot.
Now I've been advised by my Uncle and Father that it's particularly unwise to talk about my feelings about my Job on my blog. Buuuuut I figured if any boss of mine has the time to read all the crap I write just to get to some commentary about my job, then the business is probably verging on bankruptcy so I'd probably lose the job regardless.
I've been given a cubical in the midst of an empty office on the highest floor in the Engineering department. My Employee number is 3290498 but my boss says I can move up to 3290497 if I play my cards right. The job itself is a cocktail of interesting, frustrating and boring. I often find that my short attention span gets hold of me and I subconsciously hover my curser over the facebook tab. I also spend roughly 20% of the time doing Engineer related stuff - this is the stuff I really like, it allows me to do research and talk to academics, but the other 20% of the time (60% is spent on facebook) I end up reviewing code. This is the stuff which isn't so fun because reading a whole bunch of 1's and 0's has the same value as reading twilight. Even though I haven't started mentally adjusting to the job yet, physically I'm almost there. I've already developed an ideal cubical slouch with a permanently relaxed jaw and a small breathing problem to match. It's come to the point where I no longer dream about independence and freedom of speech anymore; I dream about having a son who can fulfil the James legacy of working in a factory as part of the ford assembly line - ideally my son would have a slight genetic disability making him shorter and hunched over, I'll call him Günter.
Oh yeah, my computer is broken too so that means I'm forced to be productive. I got so much shit done today, it's awful
Friday, January 24, 2014
Japan day 6
This was my last day and I was all skiied (I still don't know how to spell that word!) out. Just like your ordinary cocaine addict, I've had my fix of the white stuff and now I'm ready to be a productive member of society again. We were lucky with our timing because the visibility on the last day was just awful - easily the worst yet. I decided it would be a waste of time to take a photo of it when I could just as easily screenshot an empty Microsoft word document and show you that instead.
We spent the majority of the day hitting different bars around Hirafu drinking different cocktails and good Japanese beer. I've decided I'm a huge fan of dark rum and coke (Myers Rum & Coke) and Sapporo beer - which is surprising because I hate the smell of dark rum and usually hate the watered down taste most Asian beer has.
We then had our last dinner in a fancy Japanese restaurant which served amazing Japanese food. Sadly I don't know the names of any of the types of dishes they served us except for "Plain Rice" which was awesome.
Well that was the end of my Japan trip. I made a very lengthy and emotional farewell to my automatic toilet and started packing up my bags for an early departure tomorrow morning. 
We spent the majority of the day hitting different bars around Hirafu drinking different cocktails and good Japanese beer. I've decided I'm a huge fan of dark rum and coke (Myers Rum & Coke) and Sapporo beer - which is surprising because I hate the smell of dark rum and usually hate the watered down taste most Asian beer has.
We then had our last dinner in a fancy Japanese restaurant which served amazing Japanese food. Sadly I don't know the names of any of the types of dishes they served us except for "Plain Rice" which was awesome.
Well that was the end of my Japan trip. I made a very lengthy and emotional farewell to my automatic toilet and started packing up my bags for an early departure tomorrow morning.
Japan day 5
Niseko, Japan has been completely white washed so it's very challenging to find anything particularly cultural here. Most businesses here are run by Australian entrepreneurs and most Japanese restaurants often feature a cheeseburger on the menu. I can understand why this change has happened due to such a strong Australian tourist industry, but it's still a little disappointing to see a lack of real culture. That being said, there are still some parts of Japanese tradition/ culture which stream out through the cracks of this white washed town. You still meet a lot of Japanese on the ski lift - and their friendliness kind nature is pretty representative of the entire country. It's tough to describe in words; but the facial expressions and directness is really fascinating feature of all the Japanese people I've met so far.
I changed back to my skis and it's been a pretty good switch. I definitely don't ache as much I used to. The weather was ideal too. Still not perfect enough to ski the top of the mountain comfortably, but good enough to go see a snowboarder stack an easy green from about 300m away while you're going up a chairlift. My mum fell over too and hurt her knee. She thinks that she'll need some type of reconstruction surgery - I think she needs an ice pack.
I left the snow early so I could spend the afternoon walking around Hirafu and in some deep snow beside the hotel. There wasn't much in Hirafu since it was mostly filled with accommodation, bars and ski rental places. However, the walk around the hotel was really rewarding because you got to see completely untouched snow that had been building up since the start of winter. I'd say it got to at least 1 meter deep easily. As an Engineer I had to use my head to test whether the snow was really that deep, so I decided to face plant into the snow directly.
I changed back to my skis and it's been a pretty good switch. I definitely don't ache as much I used to. The weather was ideal too. Still not perfect enough to ski the top of the mountain comfortably, but good enough to go see a snowboarder stack an easy green from about 300m away while you're going up a chairlift. My mum fell over too and hurt her knee. She thinks that she'll need some type of reconstruction surgery - I think she needs an ice pack.
I left the snow early so I could spend the afternoon walking around Hirafu and in some deep snow beside the hotel. There wasn't much in Hirafu since it was mostly filled with accommodation, bars and ski rental places. However, the walk around the hotel was really rewarding because you got to see completely untouched snow that had been building up since the start of winter. I'd say it got to at least 1 meter deep easily. As an Engineer I had to use my head to test whether the snow was really that deep, so I decided to face plant into the snow directly.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Japan day 4
The worst part about falling over is the searing pain. The second worst part about falling over is the mild aching which comes after. Ive been walking around the city like a zombie with one of its legs injured. I started snowboarding this morning but changed out my board for my old skis again before midday. This change over was pretty convenient timing because it gave me an hour to stroll around Hirafu (the city area). I couldnt find much though because the snow prevented me from getting too far. None the less it was still pretty awesome walking around aimlessly while getting slowly blanketed in snow. While I was walking around I found a small little Kebab shop on the side of the road called 'elvis kebab shop' playing reggae music which was located right next to a few pubs - I guess its good to know that having Kebabs while drunk is now an international standard.
At 1pm I had all you can eat Sushi. I can only describe the place as a Sushi go round except without the Sushi train.
We then enjoyed a few drinks at a few different pubs before we went out for a Tapas type Japanese meal. Ive decided that Im going to exploit duty free as much as possible on my return to Australia by convincing (forcing?) my family to buy 2 bottles of spirits each for me so I can set up my own cocktail bar in the animal house. At the moment Im thinking: Vokda, Jager, Gin, Spiced rum, Kahlua and sambuca.
At 1pm I had all you can eat Sushi. I can only describe the place as a Sushi go round except without the Sushi train.
We then enjoyed a few drinks at a few different pubs before we went out for a Tapas type Japanese meal. Ive decided that Im going to exploit duty free as much as possible on my return to Australia by convincing (forcing?) my family to buy 2 bottles of spirits each for me so I can set up my own cocktail bar in the animal house. At the moment Im thinking: Vokda, Jager, Gin, Spiced rum, Kahlua and sambuca.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Japan day 3
I was in line for the first Gondola heading up the mountain. This was a good day to start early because the visibility was much better than the previous 2 days. I went to the very top of the mountain with my dad and ski'ed (am I spelling that right? IDK) to the very bottom in one go. I decided to film about 3 minutes worth of skiing which I might put up on facebook when I'm back in Australia. I've found out that my skiing level is quite unfortunate because the double black runs are quite easy for me, but the trick park is too hard for me. So when I had the chance I decided to trade in my skis for one day for a snowboard. I've never snowboarded before so this would definitely be a challenge for me. This turned out to be a good idea in the end because I could progress through the mountain with my family. Sadly, my Dad had the foresight to film me learning which means he's got a few clips of me stacking which I think are good material for a cheesy TV show.
It turns out that you only realize how hurt you are when you have a shower and find all the bruises and cuts on your body. I fell over a lot. A lot. and even my triple layering wasn't enough to protect me from the falls. It also didn't help that I made the habit of adding a bit of unnecessary momentum in every fall so that the people watching me stack it would think I'm hardcore. You could tell by their indifferent posture and lack of eye contact that everyone thought I was badass. I've also got a small bruise on my nose because I made the mistake of thinking that a beautiful clump of white snow was in fact just white snow. For fun I dived face first onto the clump expecting the clump to flatten out like a pancake and soften my fall - instead the bulge was made out of 95% ice with only a small layering of white snow on top. Ouch.
When I got back and showered up I turned on the TV and discovered one of the best shows of all time. It's a commercial for the hotel that lasts about 15 seconds with the most repetitive but catchy song in the background (Almorox by the Twister Guys). The commercial is put on repeat so it drives you into a happy kind of crazy.
In other news, my brother and I went to an all you can eat Japanese Buffet. The theme of the night was Italian so we went nuts on the pasta. To make it easier to shove food on my plate, I managed to find a children's section of the buffet which had slightly larger plates with grooves in it for separating food. The plate also had a few pictures of Popeye to keep me entertained. It worked well.
It turns out that you only realize how hurt you are when you have a shower and find all the bruises and cuts on your body. I fell over a lot. A lot. and even my triple layering wasn't enough to protect me from the falls. It also didn't help that I made the habit of adding a bit of unnecessary momentum in every fall so that the people watching me stack it would think I'm hardcore. You could tell by their indifferent posture and lack of eye contact that everyone thought I was badass. I've also got a small bruise on my nose because I made the mistake of thinking that a beautiful clump of white snow was in fact just white snow. For fun I dived face first onto the clump expecting the clump to flatten out like a pancake and soften my fall - instead the bulge was made out of 95% ice with only a small layering of white snow on top. Ouch.
When I got back and showered up I turned on the TV and discovered one of the best shows of all time. It's a commercial for the hotel that lasts about 15 seconds with the most repetitive but catchy song in the background (Almorox by the Twister Guys). The commercial is put on repeat so it drives you into a happy kind of crazy.
In other news, my brother and I went to an all you can eat Japanese Buffet. The theme of the night was Italian so we went nuts on the pasta. To make it easier to shove food on my plate, I managed to find a children's section of the buffet which had slightly larger plates with grooves in it for separating food. The plate also had a few pictures of Popeye to keep me entertained. It worked well.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Japan day 2
I awoke to the annoying sound of that repetitive simple machine lying near the side of my bed. It was my brother saying innocently "hey, weren't we meant to be meeting mum and dad soon?"
After a small delay, we met ma and pa for breakfast in the buffet. There wasn't much time, so we decided to part ways. I was to go town to find a ski rental place which sold twin tip skis while the rest of the family would start their adventure on the mountain. I found my new skis and was ready to roll. My brother also bought his 'go pro' camera with him on the slopes, so he filmed me out performing him in every way. The visibility was still pretty bad near the top of the mountain so I spent the majority of my time skiing the bottom half while testing myself with some challenging double black runs. I found a few runs which had been undiscovered by anyone the entire day because they were so well hidden. The powder had built up and there was no sign of any previous skiers or snowboarders. I stopped every 15 minutes to gaze up at the beautiful mountain for a couple of seconds. I think I've discovered that terrain skiing (involving going over moguls and dodging trees) is now my favorite type of skiing. Jumps and spins are now second place.
When I got back I decided not to go to the penis pool. It just didn't seem that appealing. Instead I had an hour long bath and found a spot with free wi fi to finish compiling my half completed blog posts.
I think i'm going to have dinner with the family later and then head out to the town in search for a pub. Sounds like a good plan.
After a small delay, we met ma and pa for breakfast in the buffet. There wasn't much time, so we decided to part ways. I was to go town to find a ski rental place which sold twin tip skis while the rest of the family would start their adventure on the mountain. I found my new skis and was ready to roll. My brother also bought his 'go pro' camera with him on the slopes, so he filmed me out performing him in every way. The visibility was still pretty bad near the top of the mountain so I spent the majority of my time skiing the bottom half while testing myself with some challenging double black runs. I found a few runs which had been undiscovered by anyone the entire day because they were so well hidden. The powder had built up and there was no sign of any previous skiers or snowboarders. I stopped every 15 minutes to gaze up at the beautiful mountain for a couple of seconds. I think I've discovered that terrain skiing (involving going over moguls and dodging trees) is now my favorite type of skiing. Jumps and spins are now second place.
When I got back I decided not to go to the penis pool. It just didn't seem that appealing. Instead I had an hour long bath and found a spot with free wi fi to finish compiling my half completed blog posts.
I think i'm going to have dinner with the family later and then head out to the town in search for a pub. Sounds like a good plan.
Japan day 1
SKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING
Skiing is kinda the best thing ever. We woke up at 7:30am to get ready to rent our stuff. This was a tough challenge for the family, but not for me. I was far too excited to let a little sleep get in my way. After a sluggish start we went to the hotels free (FREE) buffet on level two of our hotel. Tom and I both knew that my parents were paying a lot to let us stay in the hotel, so my brother and I decided it would only be polite if we made as much out of the buffet as possible to make it cost efficient. 21 plates and 6 bowels later, we were in the line to get our ski equipment rented. This is when a few things didn't quite go to plan:
Totally unbadass thing number 1: They didn't have twin tip skis for rent. Instead I had to get the normal skis for normal people. I insisted that I wasn't normal and that I was an Engineer, but the service chick couldn't understand any of the words coming out of my mouth (including Engineer, strangely).
Totally unbadass thing number 2: The gondola that was located right by the hotel was closed temporarily due to high winds
Totally unbadass thing number 3: Bad weather! Visibility wasn't awesome sauce. And as a result, I ended up stacking it once because I couldn't see the terrain in front of me.
BUT NONE OF THAT MATTERED BECAUSE SKIING IS STILL AWESOME! A few of the small lifts were still operational so we went down them to begin with - this also gave me the time I needed to practice my backward skiing (badass, right?) Nisaka is known for having the most amount of snow in the world and you can easily tell this is true. You could literally swim in the stuff if you wanted to. At one point I encouraged my brother to follow me down a black (which I convinced him was an easy red). He wasn't too happy after that and has been following mum and dad ever since. There's also a nice restaurant called the "lookout cafe" which serves an interesting mix of Japanese and Western meals. You can tell that the manager of the place tries to make the restaurant more comfortable to isolated Australians since the music played at the Cafe is also unpleasantly western - they played 50 cent for waaaay too long.
After a long days skiing I went to the Onsen in our hotel. I try to maintain some type of cultural understanding and respect in these blogs, but what I saw in the Onsen can't be forgiven. I think it can be best described as a pedophile paradise. There were naked men everywhere. I avoided sausages in the buffet the following day because I am still scared. The general procedure is to get unchanged in a very small and overcrowded changing room and place your belongings in one of several baskets. Then you take a tiny towel (about 10cm x 10cm) out with you to wash yourself off and step into the giant bathtub. I couldn't help but be reminded of a scene from "Enemy At The Gates" when the main character is armed with nothing more than a few bullets and proceeds to charge at the enemy. The funniest thing I noticed though was that all the Japanese men used their tiny towels by wetting them and then placing them on their head as they walked around naked in pure confidence. When I exited the Onsen, I noticed that there was a female employee standing near the entrance/exit fixing something! WTF Japan?
To recover from the psychological trauma, our parents took Tom and I out to dinner where we enjoyed an all you can eat buffet... So. Much. Food.
Skiing is kinda the best thing ever. We woke up at 7:30am to get ready to rent our stuff. This was a tough challenge for the family, but not for me. I was far too excited to let a little sleep get in my way. After a sluggish start we went to the hotels free (FREE) buffet on level two of our hotel. Tom and I both knew that my parents were paying a lot to let us stay in the hotel, so my brother and I decided it would only be polite if we made as much out of the buffet as possible to make it cost efficient. 21 plates and 6 bowels later, we were in the line to get our ski equipment rented. This is when a few things didn't quite go to plan:
Totally unbadass thing number 1: They didn't have twin tip skis for rent. Instead I had to get the normal skis for normal people. I insisted that I wasn't normal and that I was an Engineer, but the service chick couldn't understand any of the words coming out of my mouth (including Engineer, strangely).
Totally unbadass thing number 2: The gondola that was located right by the hotel was closed temporarily due to high winds
Totally unbadass thing number 3: Bad weather! Visibility wasn't awesome sauce. And as a result, I ended up stacking it once because I couldn't see the terrain in front of me.
BUT NONE OF THAT MATTERED BECAUSE SKIING IS STILL AWESOME! A few of the small lifts were still operational so we went down them to begin with - this also gave me the time I needed to practice my backward skiing (badass, right?) Nisaka is known for having the most amount of snow in the world and you can easily tell this is true. You could literally swim in the stuff if you wanted to. At one point I encouraged my brother to follow me down a black (which I convinced him was an easy red). He wasn't too happy after that and has been following mum and dad ever since. There's also a nice restaurant called the "lookout cafe" which serves an interesting mix of Japanese and Western meals. You can tell that the manager of the place tries to make the restaurant more comfortable to isolated Australians since the music played at the Cafe is also unpleasantly western - they played 50 cent for waaaay too long.
After a long days skiing I went to the Onsen in our hotel. I try to maintain some type of cultural understanding and respect in these blogs, but what I saw in the Onsen can't be forgiven. I think it can be best described as a pedophile paradise. There were naked men everywhere. I avoided sausages in the buffet the following day because I am still scared. The general procedure is to get unchanged in a very small and overcrowded changing room and place your belongings in one of several baskets. Then you take a tiny towel (about 10cm x 10cm) out with you to wash yourself off and step into the giant bathtub. I couldn't help but be reminded of a scene from "Enemy At The Gates" when the main character is armed with nothing more than a few bullets and proceeds to charge at the enemy. The funniest thing I noticed though was that all the Japanese men used their tiny towels by wetting them and then placing them on their head as they walked around naked in pure confidence. When I exited the Onsen, I noticed that there was a female employee standing near the entrance/exit fixing something! WTF Japan?
To recover from the psychological trauma, our parents took Tom and I out to dinner where we enjoyed an all you can eat buffet... So. Much. Food.
Japan day 0
I'm heading to Japan for a 1 week ski holiday! Sadly though, I attended James's funeral the day before my departure and now my head is swirling with a mixture of sympathy and excitement. I'm on the plane to Japan at the moment though, so I think every 5km of distance I travel sways my brain a little closer to the excitement side. My air journey has 2 parts; the first involved a 10 hour flight to Seoul Korea and the other involves a 2 hour flight to Japan. While on my Korean flight I decided to watch "Pacific Rim" which seemed like a good choice since we were crossing the pacific. I'd been warned that the movie had the same action to intelligence ratio as "the Avengers", so I decided to watch the entire movie in Korean so I could avoid noticing the shitty plot line. But even with no language I could still tell the movie was shit - why would they only start using a sword at the end? WTF, Earth? Anywho, silly movies aside, I've decided that my goal for this trip isn't to improve myself in any meaningful way. Instead the goal for this skiing trip is just to be a total badass. To start, I intentionally left my seat belt unbuckled even after the seat belt light started flashing! I also purchased a $2 bandanna which just emits an aura of awesomeness whenever I wear it.
Oh and before I forget, I should also mention that my brief stop over in the Korean airport allowed me to experience wonderful beauty of the Hello Kitty Cafe. I don't really know how the subtle movements of a cat arm can be associated with a an extra hot latte, but I guess I just have to accept there are some forces in my life larger than me that I will never truly understand.
When we arrived in Japan it was past midnight, so we just got our things and crashed in our own rooms. I promised myself to do something culturally awesome before I went to bed, so I found one of those automatic Japanese toilets in our bathroom. OMG HOW DO WE NOT HAVE THESE IN AUSTRALIA!? They automatically warm the seat and clean your ass! How badass is that!? (pun intended). Instead, I have to deal with the magical beauty of the half flush option in Australia. Not cool Tony Abbott, not cool.
Oh yeah, my first picture of Japan was of a Japanese McDonald's. I wonder if they eat a cheeseburger with chopsticks? Probably not, but it'll be cooler if they did.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
big changes in life
Just before Christmas James, my roommate, got hit by a car. After about two weeks of being in the ICU he died. He was a funny and inspiring man and I'm really glad I got to know him for a semester. I plan to attend his funeral which should be soon (hopefully before I go to Japan). In the meantime I plan to preserve the bottle cap art in the lounge room that spells his name - it's the closest thing I can do to paying my respects to his parents since I don't know them well enough to send them a personal message. RIP James.
It feels like all the news I have to deliver you about my life is pretty shadowed by James's death, but I'm going to give it a shot anyway.
I started full time work on the 7th and it hasn't been easy. The 9 - 5 lifestyle is very foreign to me - my brain just doesn't work that way. My mind is kinda like an iPod in the sense that it can only work for about 15 minutes without running out of battery and it's best utilized by working at different locations. None the less, I think I'm slowly adjusting to it because my posture has worsened to an ideal cubical employee slump. I'm working on two projects at the moment - one is a Naval Engineering project and one is a Civil Engineering project. Although I am a Mech Eng graduate, I quite like the idea of being challenged to learn new things to do your job - this is fueling a lot of my motivation at the moment. It's also really nice to know that at 5:00pm, you don't have any assignments or exams coming up. It's very freeing.
This lifestyle coupled with my lack of a social life has given me the opportunity I need to watch some TV shows I've never had the chance to watch. I recently downloaded the new season of 'The Legend of Kora' which was something I've wanted to watch for a while. I celebrated last weekend by binge eating, binge drinking and binge watching TV all at the same time... EXTREME! In this process I discovered a great tip I can give to all those TV lovers out there. When watching a show you like a lot, make sure you're really drunk first - that way you manage to enjoy the show twice.
In my spare time I managed to contact a company which is part of USyd called 'spoonfeedme'. It's a company that gets students to make videos of them teaching certain concepts. I'm a huge fan of this idea, as you probably would have guessed and I sent them an email to ask if I could get in on it. The called me back and they were very keen to get me on board. Sadly however, there are two main things preventing me from working this job in my spare time. 1) they are concerned that my Thesis videos might not be my own IP (even though I'm certain it is) so they fear a conflict of interest between universities. 2) On a moral basis I really want to make sure the videos I make for them or provide them must be free for students to watch. This is something the company is reluctant to do because, you know, companies like money. Maybe I can solve problem 1) by showing them my IP forms which are being prepared by UNSW and maybe I can solve problem 2) by ensuring I keep my IP for the videos I make with Usyd so I can upload them to YouTube for free anyway.
In other news, I've applied for leave and I'm going to Japan in about a week! This highly anticipated vacation is making me drool all over my computer. Put it this way, I love skiing about as much as North Korea loves Kim Jong Un or about as much as South Korea loves that Gangnam style guy.
It feels like all the news I have to deliver you about my life is pretty shadowed by James's death, but I'm going to give it a shot anyway.
I started full time work on the 7th and it hasn't been easy. The 9 - 5 lifestyle is very foreign to me - my brain just doesn't work that way. My mind is kinda like an iPod in the sense that it can only work for about 15 minutes without running out of battery and it's best utilized by working at different locations. None the less, I think I'm slowly adjusting to it because my posture has worsened to an ideal cubical employee slump. I'm working on two projects at the moment - one is a Naval Engineering project and one is a Civil Engineering project. Although I am a Mech Eng graduate, I quite like the idea of being challenged to learn new things to do your job - this is fueling a lot of my motivation at the moment. It's also really nice to know that at 5:00pm, you don't have any assignments or exams coming up. It's very freeing.
This lifestyle coupled with my lack of a social life has given me the opportunity I need to watch some TV shows I've never had the chance to watch. I recently downloaded the new season of 'The Legend of Kora' which was something I've wanted to watch for a while. I celebrated last weekend by binge eating, binge drinking and binge watching TV all at the same time... EXTREME! In this process I discovered a great tip I can give to all those TV lovers out there. When watching a show you like a lot, make sure you're really drunk first - that way you manage to enjoy the show twice.
In my spare time I managed to contact a company which is part of USyd called 'spoonfeedme'. It's a company that gets students to make videos of them teaching certain concepts. I'm a huge fan of this idea, as you probably would have guessed and I sent them an email to ask if I could get in on it. The called me back and they were very keen to get me on board. Sadly however, there are two main things preventing me from working this job in my spare time. 1) they are concerned that my Thesis videos might not be my own IP (even though I'm certain it is) so they fear a conflict of interest between universities. 2) On a moral basis I really want to make sure the videos I make for them or provide them must be free for students to watch. This is something the company is reluctant to do because, you know, companies like money. Maybe I can solve problem 1) by showing them my IP forms which are being prepared by UNSW and maybe I can solve problem 2) by ensuring I keep my IP for the videos I make with Usyd so I can upload them to YouTube for free anyway.
In other news, I've applied for leave and I'm going to Japan in about a week! This highly anticipated vacation is making me drool all over my computer. Put it this way, I love skiing about as much as North Korea loves Kim Jong Un or about as much as South Korea loves that Gangnam style guy.
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