When I imagined living out of home, my expectations were pretty high. I expected to get involved in a sport, eat healthy, and be productive with my work. Sadly, reality has a way of interfering with imagination.
I woke up this morning to rediscover that my bread and butter - by which I mean my bread, weetbix, milk and butter - had been eaten. Frustrated and tired, I opened the fridge to see what I could eat. I found; half a carrot, some jam, a few eggs, and two giant 8L tubs of sour cream filling up the void of the bottom half of the fridge.
The dream of eating healthy is dead. But at least I can stay fit, right?
No.
God, no.
My disgusting diet of sour cream and eggs has left me with very little energy. I can barely summon the energy to walk to upper campus, yet alone go for a rewarding run. I'm panting and sweating just writing this blog post...
Also, all my running gear smells like cat feces and vomit - what I do in my own time is MY business, not yours. I could wash the clothes, but that involves stumbling past the kitchen where I will inevitably get redirected to the fridge.
I can still do well at Uni, right?
Well, we'll see. The only good lecturer I had this semester finished her section of the course, and now we've been given another lecturer. Sadly, the new lecturer I have does the standard 'read from a power point until all the students fall asleep tactic'. Experiencing 4 years of this at UNSW has made me want to start up a reality TV show. I would find all the incompetent professors at UNSW, lead them away from Uni with a trail of bread crumbs, redirect a school bus of 10 year old's into the University, pay each kid $3 and a lolly pop to stand at the front of a class and read off the power point, then check whether actual Uni students notice an improvement in teaching quality.
Of course, for the show to be successful I'd have to cut to a scene of puppies playing in feathers or woman's volleyball.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Back to Australia
My Bali trip is over. My body will be forced to adjust back to a life without continuous massages, fine Asian cuisine, and hot & humid acid rain.
Overall the trip was great. I got a chance to catch up with my cousins, buy plenty of Bali Bintang shirts and drink plenty of watered down Bintang beer. Towards the end, I became an expert at haggling – you know you’re good when a majority of the shops refuse to sell you a shirt because your price is too unreasonable, whereas and a few other stores reluctantly accept. I got 5 Bintang singlets, a necklace, a beer opener ring, a wrist band and an American Yankees hat which I conveniently lost on the airplane.
While I was in Bali I got several flash backs of living in the countries capital, Jakarta. I was reminded of the awesome and totally unusual school I attended back from 2000 – 2004, the great friends I had, and the really unhealthy lifestyle I lived due to safety and environmental reasons. I was also reminded of the wide spread poverty, too. It really hits you the second you get into the car and look out of your window. You see kids begging in the streets, people bathing in sewers, and beggars relentlessly trying to sell you anything for $2. Perhaps what I found most shocking about the poverty was how short of a time it takes to become desensitised to it. It’s impossible to avoid noticing just how widespread the poverty is when you juxtapose it with the small spikes of teeming wealth, but after a while you just care less. The unnatural and abrupt change from broken down streets and open sewers to 5 star hotels hits you hard at first, but by your 4th drink, you care significantly less about everyone else around you. I don’t think it’s because I’m a lightweight, I think it’s a mix of the lifestyle I’ve lived as kid, and natural human thinking. I also went to an elephant park where I got to see elephants transport people around and perform simple circus tricks. The sight was nothing short of spectacular, I’ve never seen an elephant up close before, and it was really amazing to see how they eat and move. Sadly, I noticed a few ‘behind the scenes cruelty’ acts on the elephants by the locals who worked there. This inspired me to look up elephant safari parks online when I got back to the villa. I found out that almost all elephant safari parks within south east Asia are hubs of secret animal cruelty. The ‘crushing’ phase, for example, is where the locals intentionally sleep deprive the baby elephants and separate them from their mothers to ‘domesticate’ them.
Despite this, the trip was still amazing. My favourite part was probably bike riding which involved riding down from the volcano Ulan Batur for a good 20km. We went pretty slow because we were forced to move at the speed of our slowest relative – Marcus – who is 12 years old. I wasn’t there to see it, but apparently he stacked it over some rugged terrain and did a Peter Griffin moment clutching his knee going “ahh, ahh, ahh, ahh, ooh, ooh, ooh…”
Oh yeah, I’m 23 now.
Overall the trip was great. I got a chance to catch up with my cousins, buy plenty of Bali Bintang shirts and drink plenty of watered down Bintang beer. Towards the end, I became an expert at haggling – you know you’re good when a majority of the shops refuse to sell you a shirt because your price is too unreasonable, whereas and a few other stores reluctantly accept. I got 5 Bintang singlets, a necklace, a beer opener ring, a wrist band and an American Yankees hat which I conveniently lost on the airplane.
While I was in Bali I got several flash backs of living in the countries capital, Jakarta. I was reminded of the awesome and totally unusual school I attended back from 2000 – 2004, the great friends I had, and the really unhealthy lifestyle I lived due to safety and environmental reasons. I was also reminded of the wide spread poverty, too. It really hits you the second you get into the car and look out of your window. You see kids begging in the streets, people bathing in sewers, and beggars relentlessly trying to sell you anything for $2. Perhaps what I found most shocking about the poverty was how short of a time it takes to become desensitised to it. It’s impossible to avoid noticing just how widespread the poverty is when you juxtapose it with the small spikes of teeming wealth, but after a while you just care less. The unnatural and abrupt change from broken down streets and open sewers to 5 star hotels hits you hard at first, but by your 4th drink, you care significantly less about everyone else around you. I don’t think it’s because I’m a lightweight, I think it’s a mix of the lifestyle I’ve lived as kid, and natural human thinking. I also went to an elephant park where I got to see elephants transport people around and perform simple circus tricks. The sight was nothing short of spectacular, I’ve never seen an elephant up close before, and it was really amazing to see how they eat and move. Sadly, I noticed a few ‘behind the scenes cruelty’ acts on the elephants by the locals who worked there. This inspired me to look up elephant safari parks online when I got back to the villa. I found out that almost all elephant safari parks within south east Asia are hubs of secret animal cruelty. The ‘crushing’ phase, for example, is where the locals intentionally sleep deprive the baby elephants and separate them from their mothers to ‘domesticate’ them.
Despite this, the trip was still amazing. My favourite part was probably bike riding which involved riding down from the volcano Ulan Batur for a good 20km. We went pretty slow because we were forced to move at the speed of our slowest relative – Marcus – who is 12 years old. I wasn’t there to see it, but apparently he stacked it over some rugged terrain and did a Peter Griffin moment clutching his knee going “ahh, ahh, ahh, ahh, ooh, ooh, ooh…”
Oh yeah, I’m 23 now.
Saturday, April 6, 2013
BALI
I'm now in Bali! It's awesome.
Moving from Jakarta to Sydney had made me forget what it's like to be treated like a God. It's really relaxing sitting in a pool all day, enjoying fantastic Indonesian food, getting massages by the beach and not doing any form of cleaning. I never do any cleaning in Sydney, but at least now I don't have to live with the consequences of my actions :).
I went clubbing with my brother and my cousins last night too. That was fun. Walking between clubs I got encountered by dozens of locals trying to offer you all types of random shit. No doubt they're taking advantage of drunk Aussies who don't have the self control to say no to yet another pair of copy glasses. I even got approached by a guy who was selling me something which looked like a white battery or a really short and fat cigarette. Intrigued and drunk I asked him what it was. The conversation went something like this:
Me: "Ini?" [translation: this?]
Him: ";lsakdjf;saljf ;lsak asl jsfj a;lj sa;ldjf askjf;lsajf ;ljsaf;ljsa asd;laf ... as;lj;saj!! as;lja;lsjfa;lks f;lasjfd as;ldjf;lksajf;lsajf;lsajf;lsajf;lsajfsadkfsa;lkfjsa;lkfjsafksaj;ldaksf;lsaf;lsafsa;lfhas;lffsa?"
Me: "...?"
Him: "a;ljfsajf."
Me: "...?"
Him: "COCAINE!"
Me: "OoOoOoOH! Tidak Macasi." [translation: OoOoOoOH! thanks no.]
Moving from Jakarta to Sydney had made me forget what it's like to be treated like a God. It's really relaxing sitting in a pool all day, enjoying fantastic Indonesian food, getting massages by the beach and not doing any form of cleaning. I never do any cleaning in Sydney, but at least now I don't have to live with the consequences of my actions :).
I went clubbing with my brother and my cousins last night too. That was fun. Walking between clubs I got encountered by dozens of locals trying to offer you all types of random shit. No doubt they're taking advantage of drunk Aussies who don't have the self control to say no to yet another pair of copy glasses. I even got approached by a guy who was selling me something which looked like a white battery or a really short and fat cigarette. Intrigued and drunk I asked him what it was. The conversation went something like this:
Me: "Ini?" [translation: this?]
Him: ";lsakdjf;saljf ;lsak asl jsfj a;lj sa;ldjf askjf;lsajf ;ljsaf;ljsa asd;laf ... as;lj;saj!! as;lja;lsjfa;lks f;lasjfd as;ldjf;lksajf;lsajf;lsajf;lsajf;lsajfsadkfsa;lkfjsa;lkfjsafksaj;ldaksf;lsaf;lsafsa;lfhas;lffsa?"
Me: "...?"
Him: "a;ljfsajf."
Me: "...?"
Him: "COCAINE!"
Me: "OoOoOoOH! Tidak Macasi." [translation: OoOoOoOH! thanks no.]
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Beards, Bali, Books and Bookings
See what I did there with the title? All the letters begin with B. Don't see it, that's OK, look up now. See it now? Yeah, it's amazing isn't it? How did I come up with so many words beginning with B? Years of studying the dictionary and poetic techniques have all lead to this outstanding moment. It's a pity nobody will be able to see that title because nobody reads my blog anymore - not even me. Seriously, it's been yonks since I've actually made a blog post. And it's been even longer since I've made a post unrelated to my frustrations at Uni/life.
In order to bring back the stalker demographic that usually follows my feed, I'm going to have to bring back more stories of binge drinking, stupid competitions and travel! Here we go!
Aiight, so I'm having a competition with 4/5 of my other roommates. The competition is to see who can go the longest without shaving their beard. The winner will get a crate of beer of their choice (topped at $60) bought by the other contestants, and the first loser has to wax his snail trail. It's been 2 1/2 weeks now and I'm starting to hit my first obstacle - the itch phase. It's a phase where your beard gets to the length where it curls around and tickles your jawbone/chin. The result is uncontrollable scratching and severe social alienation. My beard is worse than most because for some reason, I seem to be growing a type of blonde afro from my face which makes it itch a whole lot more. This won't stop me though, my roommates and I both know just how competitive I can be when it comes to meaningless crap - just take a look at how seriously I take Mario Kart. Fortunately, things will get easier once my beard reaches the length where it can successfully act as a portable fridge by storing bits of food & drink.
I'm also going to Bali in 4 days for my cousins wedding ! Wooh! I'm skipping a whole week of Uni - assignments and all - just so I can personally wish my cousin a happy future. Oh, i'm also gonna be there for some of the cheap food, hospitality and partying scenes too. For some reason I've always connected the Red Hot Chili Peppers with Bali, which makes me think of the song "californiacation" which makes me ironically think of California. But distractions aside, it'll be an amazing trip :)
Uni is going OK too. Studying is harder this semester than other semesters mainly because I think I have less concentration than I d. I also joined the Triathlon Club at UNSW - needless to say, everyone ran away from me :(. I don't think I'll go back because it was filled with really enthusiastic couples. I've got to say, being 9th wheeled is a weird experience.
Oh yeah, I'm going to Europe via China in July for a cousins Wedding again. We're anticipating a fast divorce and speedy marriage. It should be cool. I'm traveling via Amsterdam, Germany, France and possibly Switzerland to get to England for the wedding. I'll probably still have the beard growing by then, so I'll be happy to be stereotyped as the drunk hobo who steals all the food at the buffet.
In order to bring back the stalker demographic that usually follows my feed, I'm going to have to bring back more stories of binge drinking, stupid competitions and travel! Here we go!
Aiight, so I'm having a competition with 4/5 of my other roommates. The competition is to see who can go the longest without shaving their beard. The winner will get a crate of beer of their choice (topped at $60) bought by the other contestants, and the first loser has to wax his snail trail. It's been 2 1/2 weeks now and I'm starting to hit my first obstacle - the itch phase. It's a phase where your beard gets to the length where it curls around and tickles your jawbone/chin. The result is uncontrollable scratching and severe social alienation. My beard is worse than most because for some reason, I seem to be growing a type of blonde afro from my face which makes it itch a whole lot more. This won't stop me though, my roommates and I both know just how competitive I can be when it comes to meaningless crap - just take a look at how seriously I take Mario Kart. Fortunately, things will get easier once my beard reaches the length where it can successfully act as a portable fridge by storing bits of food & drink.
I'm also going to Bali in 4 days for my cousins wedding ! Wooh! I'm skipping a whole week of Uni - assignments and all - just so I can personally wish my cousin a happy future. Oh, i'm also gonna be there for some of the cheap food, hospitality and partying scenes too. For some reason I've always connected the Red Hot Chili Peppers with Bali, which makes me think of the song "californiacation" which makes me ironically think of California. But distractions aside, it'll be an amazing trip :)
Uni is going OK too. Studying is harder this semester than other semesters mainly because I think I have less concentration than I d. I also joined the Triathlon Club at UNSW - needless to say, everyone ran away from me :(. I don't think I'll go back because it was filled with really enthusiastic couples. I've got to say, being 9th wheeled is a weird experience.
Oh yeah, I'm going to Europe via China in July for a cousins Wedding again. We're anticipating a fast divorce and speedy marriage. It should be cool. I'm traveling via Amsterdam, Germany, France and possibly Switzerland to get to England for the wedding. I'll probably still have the beard growing by then, so I'll be happy to be stereotyped as the drunk hobo who steals all the food at the buffet.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
University has started again
Uni has started again and I couldn't be less enthused. I always expect the first week to be frustrating and boring because it's either talking about the course outline or bombarding you with equations. However, this week was worse than most for two reasons.
Reason the first: MMAN4400
This is a professional engineering class that I need to complete. Every Monday at 9:00am I've got a 3 hour lecture. This may sound bad, but it's made worse by the fact that it's not really an Engineering class. It's an ethics class encouraging Engineers to think about legal issues and moral dilemmas. For those that know me, you might think that I would like this type of class. NO. It's frustrating and simplistic. However, despite the course content and the bad timetabling, the course might become decent because at least my lecturer speaks fluent English and at least he's a little bit enthusiastic about how he teaches.
Reason the second: MMAN3400
You may have heard me rant about other subjects like MMAN3110 before. In those rants I talked about how pathetic my lecturer was and how my education was being held hostage by an incompetent fool. As it turns out, the lecturer for MMAN3110 is the same lecturer for the class MMAN3400. Shit. It's really disappointing because the course content seems amazing! It's very math based and it relies a lot on a special part of physics which is a strength of mine. To give you a brief understanding of how bad my lecturer is, I'll need to walk you through the first 20 minutes of my first lecture.
1: He refuses to turn on the mike (leaving 1/2 of the students in silent limbo)
2: He reads off the slides page by page without making annotations or corrections to the typos in the documents. Something a 6 year old could do.
3: Has a unique (almost impressive) monotone. This is something I'm used to in UNSW, but when it's coupled with a lack of enthusiasm and a powerful Indian accent - it's tough to stay awake.
I guess this semester will be no different to many others. I suspect I'll end up buying some over priced books and inevitably end up teaching myself the subject from the comfort of my own room.
Reason the first: MMAN4400
This is a professional engineering class that I need to complete. Every Monday at 9:00am I've got a 3 hour lecture. This may sound bad, but it's made worse by the fact that it's not really an Engineering class. It's an ethics class encouraging Engineers to think about legal issues and moral dilemmas. For those that know me, you might think that I would like this type of class. NO. It's frustrating and simplistic. However, despite the course content and the bad timetabling, the course might become decent because at least my lecturer speaks fluent English and at least he's a little bit enthusiastic about how he teaches.
Reason the second: MMAN3400
You may have heard me rant about other subjects like MMAN3110 before. In those rants I talked about how pathetic my lecturer was and how my education was being held hostage by an incompetent fool. As it turns out, the lecturer for MMAN3110 is the same lecturer for the class MMAN3400. Shit. It's really disappointing because the course content seems amazing! It's very math based and it relies a lot on a special part of physics which is a strength of mine. To give you a brief understanding of how bad my lecturer is, I'll need to walk you through the first 20 minutes of my first lecture.
1: He refuses to turn on the mike (leaving 1/2 of the students in silent limbo)
2: He reads off the slides page by page without making annotations or corrections to the typos in the documents. Something a 6 year old could do.
3: Has a unique (almost impressive) monotone. This is something I'm used to in UNSW, but when it's coupled with a lack of enthusiasm and a powerful Indian accent - it's tough to stay awake.
I guess this semester will be no different to many others. I suspect I'll end up buying some over priced books and inevitably end up teaching myself the subject from the comfort of my own room.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Episode 1 - The Analogy
I still haven't decided whether to release my controversial blog. However, I will release the first paragraph of it just to keep y'all on the edge of y'all's chair.
Episode 1 - The Analogy
"Imagine a sewer line bursting at the top of a mountain, flinging chunks of solid shit directly into the air. Now imagine a boing 787 flying just above it so that all the condensed sewerage flies directly into the turbine of the plane. Now imagine a small child licking a lollypop at the bottom of the mountain as a rain of sewerage blots out the sun above him.
That kid is not me. I'm the turbine. Shit has hit the fan."
Will Matthew (AKA the turbine) outmaneuver the shit? How did he get into this shituation to begin with? And what will happen about future stories about his love life!? Stay tuned to find out!
Back to reality: My time in NZ is almost over and I'm looking forward to coming home. I dont think i'm refreshed enough to tackle another semester of uni, but I really want to get back into a student routine again.
I'm probably going to climb mt Egmont again before I go. But it's tough finding people to go with because, you know, the whole 'oh, it's an 8 hour climb, and the only thing you have to show for it are large blisters' doesn't seem to convince people too much.
Oh and fun fact of the day: The pope announced in December last year that Gay marriage will threaten world peace. Yay Pope!
Umm, what else do I have to bore you with? Umm, err, aearaggh, yeah my computer arrived and it's set up. Umm, what else? I umm I'm going to the beach more! Even though the sand is black (and you know how I hate everything coloured black) it's still a fairly good finish to the day to have a nice relaxing stroll to the beach.
Episode 1 - The Analogy
"Imagine a sewer line bursting at the top of a mountain, flinging chunks of solid shit directly into the air. Now imagine a boing 787 flying just above it so that all the condensed sewerage flies directly into the turbine of the plane. Now imagine a small child licking a lollypop at the bottom of the mountain as a rain of sewerage blots out the sun above him.
That kid is not me. I'm the turbine. Shit has hit the fan."
Will Matthew (AKA the turbine) outmaneuver the shit? How did he get into this shituation to begin with? And what will happen about future stories about his love life!? Stay tuned to find out!
Back to reality: My time in NZ is almost over and I'm looking forward to coming home. I dont think i'm refreshed enough to tackle another semester of uni, but I really want to get back into a student routine again.
I'm probably going to climb mt Egmont again before I go. But it's tough finding people to go with because, you know, the whole 'oh, it's an 8 hour climb, and the only thing you have to show for it are large blisters' doesn't seem to convince people too much.
Oh and fun fact of the day: The pope announced in December last year that Gay marriage will threaten world peace. Yay Pope!
Umm, what else do I have to bore you with? Umm, err, aearaggh, yeah my computer arrived and it's set up. Umm, what else? I umm I'm going to the beach more! Even though the sand is black (and you know how I hate everything coloured black) it's still a fairly good finish to the day to have a nice relaxing stroll to the beach.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Censorship and the future of my blog
I'm finding myself standing at an interesting cross road. Down one road, my future blog posts can be censored for the sake of sparing a small group of people from exaggerated criticism. Down the other road, my future blog posts can be as blunt and crude as they always have been.
As you know, I'm a huge fan of freedom of expression. So I strongly think that I should be able to say what I want without fear of being prosecuted. But at the same time, I want to be mindful about some of the douche bags I insult. After all, it's (remotely) possible that what I write now could be used against me in the future.
I got cold feet, and temporarily took down my latest blog because I thought it was a bit controversial. It's about my new house.
Will Matthew release his mysterious 'controversial' blog? Will Matthew succumb to political pressure that could influence his future well being? And what will happen about future stories about his love life!? stay tuned to find out!
Also, you can comment in the section below about whether you think Matthew should post his latest blog.
As you know, I'm a huge fan of freedom of expression. So I strongly think that I should be able to say what I want without fear of being prosecuted. But at the same time, I want to be mindful about some of the douche bags I insult. After all, it's (remotely) possible that what I write now could be used against me in the future.
I got cold feet, and temporarily took down my latest blog because I thought it was a bit controversial. It's about my new house.
Will Matthew release his mysterious 'controversial' blog? Will Matthew succumb to political pressure that could influence his future well being? And what will happen about future stories about his love life!? stay tuned to find out!
Also, you can comment in the section below about whether you think Matthew should post his latest blog.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)