Well...to be honest, a lot has been happening lately and I haven't really said much about it.
This semester has been going so quickly that I've barely blinked and already Week 5 is here...it's funny how at Uni you live by the weeks (at least I do with my schedule!).
I've been working very hard, I've been sick for the last 2 weeks and it's been difficult to find time to see all the people in my life I really care about.
I'm absolutely exhausted but the Superwoman attitude in me keeps me going...I won't lie - A little bit of imported american mineral makeup helps me look normal!
There hasn't been too much 'major' news I guess - just a lot of organisation for various events such as Leslie Cannold, http://www.cannold.com/ who is coming to speak at a Political Interest Society event next Wednesday the 30th. All are welcome to this free event, being held at 7:30pm at the Prince Albert Hotel in the function room.
Amongst everything this semester so far, I was faced with final round interviews for a Cadetship postion at Ernst & Young. It was an amazing experience and a lot of fun (and stress)....for the first time I thought seriously about possibly having an Accounting career (and it didn't look too bad at all!), but alas! Fate intervened, told me I'm meant to be an Investment Banker and instead, offered me a part within the Ernst & Young EGM Development Program (a damn good consolation prize!). I am so excited to continue my involvement with a firm that is as friendly as EY (I thought all big companies were scary places...boy was I wrong!).
Out of the experience I also made a new friend...who is an absolutely lovely person and was offered one of the few Cadetship positions in the end. I am so happy for her as she was definitely one of the top candidates there. Funnily enough...she had read and commented on my Blog here in the past!!! So it is amazing how worlds can collide sometimes.
I have to run off to a BPA tutorial now (I thought I had more time to write *bangs head*)...good ol' BPA...more on that later.
Take care everyone,
Sophie
Last night I surveyed university from a speeding shopping trolley at midnight.
Here is the midnight:
Here is the trolley:
It felt like.. well, being the way a silly teenager is supposed to be.
Tonight, I'm on Triple J! Yes, the Johanna who is guest programmer for tonight's Super Request is none other than yours truly. Kind of embarrassing though, I forgot about the part where EVERYBODY would find out that I sound like a 3 year old on the phone. My picks were 1992 by Julian Nation, Dream Brother by Jeff Buckley and Get Me Away From Here I'm Dying by Belle and Sebastian (this one sounds so melancholic, but it's actually a quite cute and upbeat song). The host of the show actually decided to aid me in my quest for friends, sending a shout-out to Melbourne Uni students. I got Dave, Sam and Lauren talking to me - if you're out there, here I am!
UPDATE - If you were listening, I order you to forget everything that was said! The host of the show wasn't very nice at all .. I tried to say hello to Matthew, and he turned it around so that Matt looked like an egocentric, dim-witted cradle snatcher. Not very nice at all, especially when I have called Matt to tell him to listen - the plan was for him to hear his girlfriend saying lovely things about him, but NO! Stupid host.
Sorry, I'm in a bad mood now.
Now I really am feeling busy. My finishing of the Angry Man animation on time is coming to the last minute. I only just got my Applied Maths Advanced assignment in today without having to miss a class. That said, there are still other things I am getting involved in.
This happened to be Prosh week and Science Week at the same time. I went to some Maths Comedy at the RMIT open day and boy it was bad. It got so bad I cried, (no, really, I did actually cry!) and had very mixed feelings of embrassement and laughing at just how bad it actually got. how's this for an intro? - 'MATHS!...MATHS!...MATHS!...'
Tuesday morning there was a Billy Cart race around the Uni. People were all dressed up weird and with their wacky, but well built (save one that had a loose steering system) billy carts. I ended up marshalling outside the south side of the Old Geology building, which the Billy carts went beside it. It was quite crazy, and people really didn't know what was happening when we warned them about killer Billy carts coming around the corner. Madness!
Later that day I went into the city to go to many places and do some shopping. Came back to uni just to catch up with a friend for coffee, something we'd been meaning to do since the start of semester but hadn't gotten round to it. We went to the Street Cafe on Lygon Street, which if you walk up Faraday Street (main tram stop), you turn right into Lygon and is about 1/3 of the way down the block. Great coffee I must say. (Would really like to try some other places, but it's good if you're going with someone you know to go somewhere you know is good.
On Wednesday I saw the end of the Jelly Wrestling competition and was quite funny. It was so competitive they almost ended up taking each others pants off. After was the Iron Gut eating competition, where about eight people tried to go through a whole lemon (including skin), extra salty baked beans, raw scrambled egg, tequila, wasabi on weetbix, instant coffee powder and milk powder (alot), mayonaise (once again, alot), and finally the Jelly from the Jelly wrestling competition. The guy who won actually vomitted up at one stage, and to avoid not winning for such a silly thing, he reconsumed it. YUM!
Also for Science Week and the faculty of sciences lecture series, I went to 'The Science of Extremes: From Biggest to Smallest'. The guy was from the UK and talked about elementry particles such as quarks, leptops and force carriers, and about other theorised particles that has come out of the maths. He then went onto about a particle detector in the UK especially built to try to detect these types of particles. One of the best public lectures I've been to for a long time. (My favourite was one on Magnetars last year, although that was at the University of Sydney, but I think they did come to Melbourne.)
Thursday brought the Panda Band to the Uni stage. They seemed to play all their best song (ok, probably those I've heard more and thus enjoyed a bit more.), but isn't it unbelievable that we get such big bands on stage? I just don't understand why even more people don't come? It's free entatainment! The bands we have arn't nobodys. People pay to see these bands quite often. It seems once again for this semester that bands will no longer be on Thursday. Fair enough - more time to study! (darn!)
Later that night, I went to the Great Big Science Gig at Federation Square. It was of a much lower intellectual level than the public lecture, but covered much more, and was also funnier and more musical. It was basically aimed at a younger audience, but there was no reason why I couldn't enjoy it. I worked out that I'd seen these guys before three years ago on work experience during Science Week, at the Discovery Centre Museum in Bendigo. (Bendigo's mini 'ScienceWorks')
So, I plan to do little homework this weekend. Angry Man is calling me...
I am alive. More on that later.
David Tench tonight. I think it will be on tomorrow night.. and I don't understand! Why on earth does anybody think that we want to watch a silly, disproportionate CGI man telling borderline un-PC jokes?!?!? Channel Ten have been plugging it in practically every single news update for the last few days.. strange that he/it should be more important than international conflicts and the like. Television is annoying me greatly at the moment. David Letterman has been ditched for a stupid late night game show, ER disappeared without warning, Channel 7 'celebrities' seem to no longer be confined to their respective shows and time slots. The only things worth watching are Queer Eye re-runs and Grey's Anatomy. GREATLY FRUSTRATING!
And why, you may be asking, am I allowing television to affect me so much? You guessed it - I'm sick. Somehow despite swallowing echinacea like candy and avoiding contact with other sick people, I managed to get the dreaded 'thing' that seems to be infecting every single person in Geelong at the moment. I feel like my head has doubled in size and weight. It's not very nice.
But other than that, things are alright. I recently started a new blog under a psuedonym after a little incident of stalking and harrassment by email. It has since been resolved, but unfortunately it was enough for me to (in a fit of fury) delete my beloved Dandelion Song. Two years and 70+ posts of my life chronicled, plus stories and poems and pictures. I can't believe I did it. *sigh*
Anything Goes is coming along. Unfortunately, I'm barely in it. I could rant and rave about it forever, but it won't change anything. I will post details soon, but don't come and see it for me - I will say that it will be a good show though.
Brain fog returning.. must keep doing homework... I am alive and kicking, but sick... more soon!
Alright, so I've been completely eclipsed by my fellow bloggers on sheer number of entries posted to this site. Even good old Jim has come from nowhere and posted like crazy these past few days. To alleviate your concerns Jim, people are reading your entries! One of my co-workers at Myer, who has incidentally met at least one other blogger on this site apart from me, is a big fan of yours! Even if people aren't interacting through the mindless posting of comments, a-la blogging sites like My(wasteof)Space, they're apparently enjoying reading our rants and all about our first-year antics.
To justify this entry as having a purpose, I'd like to advise everyone to keep a close scrutiny on their marks upon release. The subject which I scored an H2B for, against my gut feeling on how I'd performed, ended up being a clerical error and was adjusted to an H1 - a tremendous relief. If I hadn't emailed my tutor to enquire about where I'd gone wrong in the assessments, I don't know if that would have been picked up. So follow your gut feeling and don't be afraid to ask questions of your tutors, especially if you're not sure why you received the mark you did.
Sorry chaps, I'm in too much of a PJ Harvey induced trance to write anything else meaningful. More soonish!
Can anyone give me any infomation on exactly what has happened at the Univesity today? (or another day?)
From: Vice-Chancellor
Date: Aug 10, 2006 4:18 PM
Subject: Say 'no' to vilification
To: ugrad-users@studentlists.unimelb.edu.au
Universities offer a forum for vigorous debate, including discussion of
unpopular opinions.
In Australia, as in the rest of the world, we are experiencing the
effects of deeply troubled times in the Middle East.
At this testing moment, students and staff of the University of Melbourne
must feel secure in advancing or defending their views of the world.
But equally we must respect long-established practices about the conduct
of scholarly debate, however impassioned. Members of the University
community have a responsibility to appreciate that people on all sides
have sincerely and deeply held views.
They are entitled to express those views without suffering abuse or
intimidation. Present circumstances in the Middle East are no excuse for
anti-Semitism or racist behaviour. Such vilification has no place on our
campus.
Glyn Davis
Vice-Chancellor
10 August 2006
It's funny how sometimes commentators refer to Australia as a colony of the United States. Usually we as individuals, attempt to proclaim our independence...while at the exact same time our government continues its hand shakes and takes us further away from what it means to be "Australian" as we know it.
I guess it's world of contradictions though; because have we ever truly been "Australian?" Perhaps in the colonial days we developed a 'unique' identity but over time, two World Wars and Globalisation it would seem that identity is no longer in such great existence as we once thought it was.
More recently one has to even question if uniqueness ever existed in the first place? Is the concept of being an "Australian" merely propoganda that helped us survive the varied times of uncertainty? After all, many other countries include "mateship" "sport" "humour" and "beer drinking" as part of their national identity...and I've met many larrikan Americans and Englishmen in my time (as short as it's been so far).
I guess like every individual searches for a reason to their existence.....every country searches for an understanding of their place in the world, and a national identity can help a country and its people feel comfortable in their place. Because though, in the relative scheme of things, we're one giant big island with a population 1/14th that of the USA....i.e meaningless on a world scale - our unique identity helps us deal with that harsh reality. On a national scale, we just have that modern day undeniable human need to be famous excpet we're D-grade on the scale, so we try to claim whatever 15 minutes we can get.
Sometimes it seems like one thing after the other.
Yes, we're still a monarchy despite none of us knowing the worlds to God Save the Queen, but since the first McDonalds came here back in the 1970s our culture has been one to make various attempts of emulation of American ideals and sometimes I worry about the effect this is having on our living standards.
Industrial relation reforms are a whole other story but on a side note, OECD reports have found that those developed countries with socialist-based democratic governments; with a strong focus on employment retraining and high levels of public welfare, in fact experience no greater (even at times less)unemployment than those countries with harsh welfare schemes aimed at giving the stick and not the carrot.
Most recently I have begun to question Melbourne University's change from an "Australian" style degree system...to one based on the American system. Will the quality of education we come out with under this new American system really be better than as it is currently? Or is adding an extra year onto our degrees simply a money-grabbing scheme to help deal with the year upon year of reduced federal government funding?
I question our 'unique identity' but the optomist in me still believes that overall we ARE different. Our history is like that of no other. Our combination of past governments provided a system based on a "Fair go" ...based on providing opportunities and protecting the weak and poor. It was focussed around those classic Labor values that people are inherently good, and if given the right circumstances will ultimately do the right thing. More conservative theory on the other hand take a slightly cynical view: that societies need strict supervision to prevent abuse. Overall though, the balance of these two-party ideals greated a country that was undoubtedly one of the the best in the world to live in.
Over the last 10 years a lack of vision has seen things change...and now the only vision we see is guided by outside enterprise, and jaded with the sight of the dollar.
A viewpoint was raised at the Political Interest Society meeting yesterday: American culture is different. Americans send their children to the public school down the road for primary and high school. They save all their money for college and hence, can afford to pay the fees. Here we save every penny to send our kids to the local private school for primary and high school so they can GET an education and go to somewhere like Melbourne for university (college). How can we afford both ways - a primary, high school and university all of which require high levels of payment?
And to add to this: American Universities make up millions of their revenue from private donations. We don't have that same mind-set. We have always believed it is the responsibility of the government to fund higher education to a large extent.
Oh how things change. http://www.unimelb.edu.au/giving/students
These advertisements are being put up as we speak aroudn the university.
I guess my final question is: What do we want? Who do we want to become? Who do we want our nation to become - Us or Them?
Got a flu on Friday.
Some other people did too.
I feel better now -
how about you?
(sorry that was so cheesey)
Not really in the mood for writing (heaps), but I don't want to let you down. But it is very strange not to hear from Jez for so long. Must be still sick.
I went to the University Health service and had a checkup and now know I'm B12 defiecient. So I'm jamming B12 pellets down my throat, along with the B Complex. The health service at the University is great. They bulk-bill and are very friendly. The Dental service is also very competitive, with $25 for a checkup for health-care card holders with a student union membership, or $50 if you don't have the health care card. ($80 for those without union membership.) Today I did have a dental appointment but unfortunately some of their equipment has broken down and they had to reschedule my appointment.
Strange event of the week - walking along near Bullewinkles and two people, about 10 metres away from each other drop their books onto the ground at the same moment. I could not help but stopping at this bizarre (and funny) coinsidence.
On Tuesday last week on the stage was True Live. They had a double bass, electric cello, violin, drummer, pianist and MC, giving a fresh sound with a groovy beat that made you feel like dancin'. I wanted to start dancing, but the chef at my college slept in (for the first time I know) and there wasn't lunch at the usual 12:30, so I went to get some food from the free BBQ which took me to about 1:20pm (I got there about 12:55), and then had to eat it. It just so turned out that when I finally did finish eating, that the next song that I felt like dancing to heaps of people rose. I'm also looking forward to next week on Tuesday, as their decription (what ever it was now) sounded interesting. (I remember it sounding interesting.)
The Physics Prac went bad - accidently entered voltages of 1000 times less, and got a very bad result for Planck's constant.
Last Friday I bumped into someone from my lectures and we decided to have coffee and do some maths homework. We then made our way to the Baillieu and I borrowed a laptop, but intead of doing homework, we watched heaps of flash movies, and especially laughed at The Ultimate Showdown. http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/285267 Now I can't seem to stop humming it.
The weekend brought a maths Talk by Dr. Marty Ross called Maths vs God, and was both funny, and very interesting. Explaining the flaws in some mathematical proofs for God (honestly I think the guy that tried to do this is an idiot, after seeing where some odds were pure estimates, which have no real value, since to give something a probability you either need a good reason to give it that probability (such as on a coin there is two sides that are equally likely), or through past observation. He also talked a little on how science and religion do not tend to cause any real conflicts on a personal level to those in the US that have also studied things like evolutionary theory, etc.
This Tuesday brought a band I wasn't so rapt in, they weren't bad, just didn't find it interesting to listen to. But I did see a friend of a friend. I then went on to meet friends of friends of my friend. It was kind of weird at first, but then got into it. I suppose it just wasn't what I was expecting that day. (and I was still tired from the flu)
I probably sound different from usual, but this post was probably more rushed as there just doesn't seem to be heaps of spare time at the moment. I don't think there's much on this weekend thankfully. I can study for the physics test!
I cannot believe this. Some complete THIEF stole $18 worth of Organic Bananas out of our family's trolley at the Victoria Market yesterday. I am absolutely furious! I am enraged! This is just disgraceful! I mean I know how some theives there steal people's trolleys to feed their family or something but to actually specifically target someone's bunch of banana's that they bought and paid for with their hard-earned dollars? I cannot believe the nerve! Some person out there is now enjoying the bananas that my father slaved his guts out to purchase. Right now my current feeling is somewhat like Lucille Bluth in complete shock/anger:
Sometimes I wonder if this whole nation is going insane.
The reason i start to dislike this blogging website is that there are pretty few interactions. It feels like me myself and i. I only talk to my fellow bloggers and 1 or 2 readers. It should be more lively. Readers should talk more, respond to the blog, exchange ideas/feelings.
YOu can post comments by signing up, but they are delayed for the check up on the content.
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