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Year View| Summary| Highlights| March 2005 (Month View)

Nov ‘04 | Dec ‘04 | Jan ‘05 | Feb ‘05 | Mar ‘05 Apr ‘05 | May ‘05 | Jun ‘05 | Jul ‘05 |

01.03.2005 – Tuesday 1 March – House of Flying Daggers

• I once again attended uni at 7 o’clock at the wrong end of the day – something that requires me to get up at five o’clock, which isn’t easy that early in the morning. After ensuring my section of the university was functioning, I went and saw Dr. Soon, who signed my bank stuff for me and chatted about next semester. I then attended my inaugural PSYC1030 lecture, missing the latter half, as I had to head into the city. PSYC1030 sounds as though it may be interesting, and hopefully not too challenging or difficult.

Evening

• After relaxing in the Roma Street Parklands for a while, I became hungry so headed towards the city, buying a felafel roll and eating it in the botanical gardens. After this, I headed across to South Bank where I purchased and consumed a Cold Rock Super Shake while watching a Channel 9 helicopter filming traffic and CityCats, before watching “House of Flying Daggers” at what used to be the IMAX cinema. The movie was quite good, and although more believable than Hero, came across as more Western, which isn’t necessarily an advantage for a Chinese film. At times it was painfully clichéd, and I’d find myself thinking, “surely they won’t do that”, just before they did, but overall it was quite enjoyable, gaining six “Fockers”, for a total of 27 cat women or precisely three quarters of a true lie – the same as Hero.

Comment by DM – Thursday 3 March 2005, 9:54 PM

  I see you hold Cat Woman in wonderfully high regard.

Comment by io – Monday 7 March 2005, 3:23 PM

  Well Catwoman did score like the anti-best movie of 2004. I liked House of Flying Daggers more than Hero myself, and Hero more than Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

02.03.2005 – Wednesday 2 March – Shopping

• I caught a bus into the city, buying an apple turnover for breakfast, before heading into uni where I met Kieran, Maz and Clint, after complaining that I can’t access my email or the psychology website from the labs. I was originally going to print out lecture notes as well, but they are password protected, and the passwords are given out in the first lecture. I strongly disagree with this stupid concept, but there’s not much I can do about it. Kieran, Maz and I went to the Ville for lunch, for the first time in a while, and then we headed into the city with Clint, where we spent all afternoon walking around window-shopping.

Night

• Due to an apparent failure of its non-deducibility property, my journal has undergone a slight update.

03.03.2005 – Thursday 3 March – Lectures & Green Goo

Morning

• Today I, amongst other things, attended my introductory CSSE3004 lecture. This course is not sounding like much fun. The lecturer set the mood well, first by ignoring a sudden influx of late people, then blandly asking several to close the door behind them, only to have it opened by the next person, and finally commenting that people should, in future, attempt to be on time and that he’d put this down to it being the first lecture. This was in spite of him knowing that this lecture had confusingly been advertised as occurring in two different locations – something that was probably his fault and that he’d been informed of prior but had not, as far as I’m aware, attempted to rectify, and it was obvious these people were those who had gone to the wrong location. Anyone with a personality would have made a little joke, or done something other than continuing to lecture about nothing much, in a management-tinged monotone; perhaps whoever told me that he had the “personality of an ant” was right after all. Then, after two mind-numbing hours, we traipsed to another lecture theatre where we were asked to fill out a form including what times we were available. This I couldn’t do as I hadn’t yet finalised, figured out, or even remembered any of my timetable, yet when I asked if it would be alright to hand the form in this evening, or some other time after I’d had a chance to check my timetable, I was told no – that I should just hand in a blank form if I was unable to fill it out now. That’s obviously ridiculously pointless, and smells nastily of process for processes sake regardless of logic, and I’m beginning to think that might be a lot of what we’re going to be learning in our assigned groups; here’s hoping I get a good group or this could be unbearable. We were also subjected to the standard plagiarism warnings – copy even two sentences, and rather than say “it’s only two sentences”, the lecturer will refer the matter to the school for disciplinary action.

Lunch

• Green goo, technically dhal, potatoes and spinach mush, and rice, were purchased and consumed by myself at Indooroopilly, while Maz ate unhealthy junk food and Kieran discussed the virtues of meat.

Evening

• My evening lecture, the first INFS3202 lecture, was a stark contrast to the dull management-drone morning. Kieran, Maz and I walked into the lecture to find the lecturer having difficulty getting the projector to work, but making a few quips about it. We were told that team-based courses result in many students not learning anything, and that this lecturer doesn’t care if we copy things off the web if we feel like it, provided we don’t copy any other student’s work as the school will automatically discover that. Unfortunately though, he has taken several of the components I wished to learn out of this course and put them into a new course running in second semester. This is a bit of a problem, as I was relying on them to help me learn some skills I think I’ll need in second semester, and now I’ll have to learn them in private study. Kieran then had a chat about Microsoft, as he is wont to do, and we left, skipping the second half of the lecture as it was about such in-depth concepts as “What is the Internet” – not something I feel like learning on a Thursday.

Comment by Maz – Thursday 3 March 2005, 9:14 PM

  It was not unhealty junk food. It was chips because I wasn't really hungry.

Comment by Lucas – Friday 4 March 2005, 3:03 PM

  Good luck in the project, i'm sure you saw us slaving over sprinklers last year!
  
  Key to doing well: have a good group. Unfortunately it is something you can't control. Individual brilliance can't make up for a garbage group.

Comment by Ned – Friday 4 March 2005, 9:15 PM

  That being the main problem with group projects – I do not want my mark to reflect the aptitude, or otherwise, of others outside my control.

04.03.2005 – Friday 4 March – Work

• I finished the book I was reading, “The Snow Leopard” by Peter Matthiessen, on the way home from work. Other than that, and my first night’s work, nothing else earth shattering happened.

Comment by little bird – Wednesday 9 March 2005, 1:40 PM

  I heard through the grapevine that your ITS working hours are going to be cut back to 10 a week. This is shocking.

Comment by Ned – Wednesday 9 March 2005, 4:22 PM

  I am not sure who you are, or where you heard that, but as far as I am aware, my hours have remained the same as expected.

Comment by Maz – Thursday 10 March 2005, 9:30 PM

  But what has happenend THIS week? :P

05.03.2005 – Saturday 5 March – Kickboxing

• I was driven up to the Ettamogah Pub, where we met my sister, Shan and Kylie – all of who were fighting in the night’s kickboxing.

Shan

• Shan had the first fight out of the three – and he was knocked out within a second of starting – very disappointing for him but quite impressive. His opponent just walked up and knocked him out – appearing very confident and looking, at least to me, pre-planned. While it was his opponent’s first Kickboxing fight, he had apparently had “no rules” fights before, and while I suppose Shan should have blocked the punch, it was essentially a fluke.

Kylie

• Kylie-Anne was the next out of the three to fight. I honestly can’t remember that much about her fight right now, but I think she fought well, but was then punched or kicked and didn’t get up – not knocked out, but a “technical knock out”.

Sarah

• Sarah had the last fight of the three, and also lost her fight. She was clearly winning in the first round, but then a kick to the body left her unable to fight – a “technical knock out”, and, I suppose, a fair, but no doubt disappointing, fight.

• After the fights we all went clubbing, except the queues were rather slow and large and the music expected to be uninspiring. Because of this, I ended up wandering along the beach instead, cuddling and watching the waves break onto rocks, after which I spent the night with Vince and Sarah.

06.03.2005 – Sunday 6 March – Relaxing

• Vince and crew needed to be on a reasonably early plane, so we got up far too early and drove back to Brisbane, making up for this by spending most of the rest of the day in bed, before heading back to the current Joe-less insanity of home.

07.03.2005 – Monday 7 March – Renae & Shelly

Day

• Getting up at five o’clock is, to put it nicely, early. It was also a little nippy – a sign of things to come, global warming permitting. The journey on the CityCat is actually somewhat nice early in the morning.
  Once at uni, I worked, attended my COMS4200 lecture during which we went over the basics of C and I was pleased to find I knew it all already. Then Maz and I went to our COMS4200 tutorial, where we silently sat, knowing all the answers while others bumbled on about slightly related issues, quite managing to miss the point of most of the questions. This was followed by the obligatory visit to Clint’s room, which precipitated a visit to the poster sellers who seem to have taken over the Holt Room, before printing out some notes for tomorrow’s lecture and getting a lift to Centrelink with Maz. After admiring the interior of Toowong Centrelink for some time, I trained to Govindas for sustenance, having eaten very little all day – all weekend for that matter, and not feeling the best because of it.

Night

• Silas’s sister and her boat-mate arrived just as I did, so a celebration is being had.

08.03.2005 – Tuesday 8 March – Tortillas & Chilli

• Today I learnt about babies for an hour, then about love, passion, commitment and something else – the name of which escapes me right now. Basically, I learnt nothing. If there was anyone in the class who didn’t already know the concepts of love we were being “taught”, then they should probably seek urgent counselling. I did take this course as it was supposed to be really easy, but I didn’t realise that meant it consisted of people explaining the most obvious statements to us. Still, it may make it easier for me to get a good grade.
  After spending half the day not learning anything, I headed into the city and had dinner at a Mexican place in West End, which, while not really my style, was actually quite nice.

Night

• I met Bronwen in the city and we spent a while walking around West End, until I chose a Mexican place. We then walked back to her place where I spent the night.

09.03.2005 – Wednesday 9 March – Cleaning & Work

• We are supposed to have left the money for the cleaner on a mantelpiece, but no one did, so this morning when I got home I found a note there from the cleaner – “No money, no clean”, however I was too tired to care. Today would have been a really good day to sleep, given that it’s my mid-week weekend and how tired I was, but I had to work, so back to uni it was. I also have to eat, so I stopped at Govinda’s on the way to work.

10.03.2005 – Thursday 10 March – Long & boring, but with a lovely end

• Thursday looks like being a long, boring, and unpleasant day. I have two hours of CSSE3004 lecture, followed by another hour of CSSE3004 “workshop”, which appears to be identical to the preceding two hours of lecture, followed by a short break then an hour-long tutorial, which fortunately doesn’t start until next week. Then, to top it all off, there’s two hours of INFS302 lectures – which don’t appear to be that fantastic either. A normal person would then seek psychiatric help, but I still have a few hours work to lurch through before I can get some sleep on the train home, or not, as it turned out.

Night

• I phoned Bronwen from the Bus Stop, and she came and picked me up. I stayed the night at her place.

11.03.2005 – Friday 11 March – Training

11:44pm

• I’m actually not as sleepy as I should be, probably because I managed to sleep on the train, and I’ve been on the train three times today. I got up early, bussed into the city, bought breakfast from a patisserie in the Myer Centre, and then trained from there home via Woolworths. Then, after a short relax and some washing, I trained back into the city, bussing out to work, then the same back home again.

12.03.2005 – Saturday 12 March – Be Cool

Morning

• I slept for a full eight hours, for a change – and it was nice. Now I feel pleasantly refreshed and can open both eyes at once without having to shut down other parts of my brain to conserve energy. One advantage of being tired that I’ve noticed recently is the insane, almost euphoric, sense of the absurd, where everything appears farcical: “Oh look, a small baby has just been run over by a bus – how funny it looks!” While this makes otherwise boring everyday life into an amusing blur of unimportant events, I have a feeling that it may not be the best way to remain permanently.

Afternoon

• I caught a train into the city without sleeping – who’d have there were so many stations. Once there, I found the only remaining cheap vegetarian curry on a Sunday, sat, and ate it surrounded by people queuing to see Delta Goodrem. I then missed the bus to uni, so sat again.

Night

• Maz and Clint had been purchasing pineapples for a housewarming gift, as one does. Maz and I went to Chez Tessa for dinner, which we ate while walking to the CityCat to Southbank, where it appeared we’d missed out on tickets to “Be Cool”, but hadn’t; however, it was a sell-out session and very busy. “Be Cool” wasn’t a very sensible movie, but its farcical comedy was ridiculous enough to pass as insensible and I enjoyed it on what’s apparently Australia’s biggest screen. I give it a full one sixth of a flying dagger, which just so happens to be one “focker”. After the movie, Maz and I headed back to uni via the CityCat, called in on the very noisy Clint and Co at their housewarming, and then I headed home. There’s an extremely large, foul, unusual, cold cabbage-bubbling broth in the kitchen filling the place with a vile stench. I dare not ask why.

13.03.2005 – Sunday 13 March – Surfers Paradise

• I had planned to drive to the beach with a few blokes, but that never happened, so I trained to Surfers Paradise instead. The weather was quite nice – a little overcast, even sprinkling a tiny bit at one stage, but still sunny enough for everyone to be out at the beach. I walked from one end of the beach to the other, which ended up being quite a long way, and then back – which ended up being just as long except the other way around, and then it was late so I caught the train back home again.

14.03.2005 – Monday 14 March – Uni, Stress & Connections

• I finally got around to checking what I was supposed to have been doing at uni over the past week or two, and what I would have to do in the coming weeks – and it’s not good. All four subjects have things due in the week after the mid-semester break, two of which are quite large and likely to be challenging and time consuming. I suppose, in retrospect, I should have listened when one of my lecturers said in the first lecture, “start now, do not delay, do not put it off, start now”, and then again when he said in second week, “those who haven’t started now are now a week behind, and will find it hard to catch up”. Fortunately, I can delude myself into believing I’m far more intelligent than most people, so I am not too worried – although perhaps I should be.
  After realising how far behind I already am, I figured I should begin something, so I tried to write a business case study – which didn’t go very well, partly because everyone kept talking, and partly because I have no idea how to write a business case study.

Night

• I had a rather amazing series of bus connections. My bus left uni just as I arrived, and just as it was arriving in the city, they closed and evacuated the Queen Street Bus Station, causing general havoc. One side effect of this was that they placed my next bus almost right in front of me, and about to leave, something it normally isn’t. This would have made for a fast trip had I then hopped off that bus at the right stop rather than thinking I’d get off at the next stop, which might, or so I hoped, be a minute or so closer. I’d then not have had to ride the bus all the way to the next suburb, and catch another bus, which arrived just as I got off my previous bus, back again.

15.03.2005 – Tuesday 15 March – Psychologically

• It’s ironic that, despite being so much closer to uni than home and leaving only shortly after I would have had I been out here, I actually got to uni later than I normally do. Such are the vagaries of public transport. Once at uni I learnt about infantile attachment and intrapersonal comparisons in my PSYC1030 lectures, then that depicted violence makes people violent. These psychology lectures are actually interesting, although often very obvious and far too slow-paced to keep my interest during the two drowsy hours they occupy. I was supposed to continue my business case thing after my psychology tutorial, but due to the prac tutor never arriving, and a great dearth of sleep last night, the required level of motivation could not be found, and I instead ended up visiting Clint, buying dinner from the Ville, and watching “The Price is Right”. College folk are weird.

• While at Clint’s, I got an SMS from Bronwen’s Mum, and after another SMS and a phone call, I have arranged to meet her tomorrow morning for a coffee. I am a bit worried why, but after phoning Bronwen tonight, have concluded that either Bronwen does not know, or it is not important enough for her to have remembered.

• Just as I was arriving at Central Station to head home, Natalie phoned and we had a short chat.

Night

• I arrived home to find five scary looking letters from Sydney. It seems Citibank have security high on their mind – all were from them, and contained things such as fancy hidden numbers with special rip-off tamper-evident sections with see-through plastic numbers. I was also impressed by getting onto a real, live, and helpful, human on the phone – within a minute of calling, and at half past eight. The interest rate they’re paying has also gone up one tenth of a percent in the few hours since I logged in, which, while a coincidence, is still rather cool.

• Why are cats suicidal? Fruit-loop managed to climb outside a second-storey sliding window, but inside its flyscreen, becoming wedged and risking further tearing the already torn flyscreen and falling to a sticky end.

16.03.2005 – Wednesday 16 March – Ong Bak

• Today is supposed to be my midweek-weekend, but as I had to be in the city early anyway, I figured I’d head out to uni and work on all the assignments I’m putting off. The heading out to uni part I managed, but the assignments remained largely untouched; a very unproductive day was had although I did attend the “Careers Fair”, where I discovered how expensive it is to get a government clearance.

Night

• I went and saw “Ong Bak” at South Bank, followed by green curry and Chinese vegetables, eaten at Kangaroo Point. “Ong Bak” was actually incredibly impressive, in a very brutal way – as they said themselves, “No stunt doubles, no computer graphics, no strings attached”. People are really falling, fighting and getting hurt – making this perhaps the most impressive martial arts film I have seen. Unfortunately though, it was rather average other than the action, the plot and acting letting it down to seven “fockers”, but a must-see if you like the sort of realistic action Hollywood just can’t make.

17.03.2005 – Thursday 17 March – Managers Suck Day

• Today is CSSE3004 day, which, as a rough translation, says today is bad. I was there ready to argue with the lecturers, and even sat down the front for that purpose, but they managed to temporarily disarm me by anonymously reading out an mail, as an example of how not to write, and presumably to send a clear warning to others that we should “write professionally”. Darren read the entire email, emphasising spelling and grammatical mistakes – basically ridiculing the author, who I happen to know. I’d be seriously complaining to the faculty if it were I, because while it may have been read anonymously, it was still a public humiliation to the person in question, and I, for one, knew who it was. After this, they read parts of my email, and answered the questions I’d asked for the rest of the class, which nearly made up for the brusque way they’d replied to it earlier. I, and a few others, then asked several questions, and got answers for them (although I had to ask the same question twice and even had to ask two of them three times, and one a fourth time during the tutorial, before I got an answer that made sense – these people really are that bad). Since they’d answered my questions, I figured that perhaps they weren’t as bad as I’d originally thought, although I’d suspect that reading out the initial email in the way they did would be grounds for dismissal, or at least a public apology, if the author made enough of an issue out of it.
  Once I got to the tutorial, however, I was reminded of why I dislike these people – the tutorial answers are not available online, and we are prohibited from copying them in any form other than off the overhead projector by pencil, which is going to make it hard for people like myself to study tutorial answers prior to exams. I went and saw Ken and complained, but he said he wouldn’t consider changing that policy at this time, and that the idea is to force people to study the tutorials before the tute. While I can understand the logic, I would rather study the correct and official answers for my exam, rather than my quite possibly faulty interpretation. The tutorials aren’t assessable, so there’s nothing I can actually validly complain about, as there’s no policy governing the provision of non-assessable material – but I am back to disliking this crew again.

Night

• I visited Clint for a short while after work, before heading home, where I didn’t arrive until after midnight due to St. Patrick’s Day and the hordes of insane that use this as an excuse to get drunk and do things they’ll regret come tomorrow. Once home I discovered that my journal has problems if an update is done without sufficient disk space to contain the update, truncating output files. This shouldn’t normally be a problem, but the XSLT processor that reads the output XML has a heart attack when it finds invalid mark-up and dies, so I spent half the night messing around adding better error handlers.

Comment by joseph – Sunday 20 March 2005, 6:33 PM

  hey bro,
  i was in that lecture too. what questions did you ask 3 times? i know one was asked three times, but i cant remember what it was ...
  ta mate ... as you can probably guess ... im currently writing mmy business case now ...
  cheers

Comment by Ned – Sunday 20 March 2005, 8:14 PM

  I don’t remember, but I asked some personally during the middle of the two-hour lecture, and again during the following tutorial.

18.03.2005 – Friday 18 March – Sick & Tired

Day

• Staying up until after four o’clock last night wasn’t a good idea, as usual. I now have a sore throat and generally don’t feel one hundred percent. I had also planned to head into uni before midday and do some work on the many assignments that need to be done, but somewhat unsurprisingly, I didn’t feel like it and didn’t end up at uni until time for my INFS3202 prac. Ironically, it’s being tutored by someone I tutored with before, and currently covers the same material I tutored with her last time, so is really rather pointless at the moment. The lack of assignment progress is not a good thing.

Night

• The journey home was mildly more interesting than usual. I caught the bus to the station after work, as per usual, and it was full of drunken and self-centred idiots, it being a Friday. Tonight they were the worst type – American girls from Emmanuel, and they were “singing” (for want of a better word) very loudly. I managed to survive by imagining nasty bus accidents where I was the only one who had a miraculous escape. Then, on the train home, I had three young girls “serenade” (to use the word sarcastically) me with love songs and acrobatics – or perhaps more accurately, giggle and dare themselves to sing love songs to me, spill drinks all over the place, and tell each other how shamed they were. As can be imagined, I got very little sleep.

19.03.2005 – Saturday 19 March – Sunny & Pleasant

Morning

• I feel terrible – not only is my throat sore, but I feel sick and achy. In theory I should probably sleep or relax or something, but I’ve this theory that giving in to aches only makes them happier and stronger, so I will probably go out and try shake it off.

Evening

• The train into the city went a new route, due to track work. This isn’t something one can often say about trains, given how they’re restricted to very specific routes, but as there’s a loop, the Beenleigh line can cross over to the Sydney line and approach the city that way. Once in the city, I had planned to go to Govinda’s for lunch, but ended up sitting in a park discussing the meaning of life until after Govinda’s closed, so bought a kebab and Cold Rock super shake instead.

Night

• I attended a sixtieth birthday party, where I discussed everything from white jacarandas to the effect cheaper airfares have had on Western Australia to disciplining children, uninstalled Kazaa and installed WinMX, and generally had a pleasant time. Being hungry, it having got late, and most places having closed, a detour was made to a pizza place, which happened to be just across the road from channel seven’s restaurant, and pizza was eaten. A lovely sleep was then had.

Comment by Graham – Monday 21 March 2005, 9:53 AM

  How is WinMX going for you? Kazaa's seemingly lacklustre ability to do anything at all is making me lurgid. I intend to dispense of it and would like to know if WinMX is significantly better.
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  New O'toole Project album 'Rockin in Bethlehem' out now at http://www.mp3.com.au/theo'tooleproject

Comment by Ned – Monday 21 March 2005, 12:19 PM

  Yes, it is significantly better, although not as simple.

Comment by Lucas – Monday 21 March 2005, 2:12 PM

  Yeah WinMX is heaps better. Bit of a crowded interface, but once you get used to it you realise how much better it is over Kazaa if only in terms of simple functionality (eg like showing what place you are in a queue).
  
  I still have both installed: WinMX and Kazaa Lite K++

Comment by Redbeard – Tuesday 22 March 2005, 9:32 AM

  I can't believe The O'Toole Project is being advertised on nedmartin. All the things I do on the internet to waste time are converging.

Comment by Mum – Tuesday 22 March 2005, 8:11 PM

  All the things you do on the internet to waste time, are a waste of time. Get a life. There is a moon outside. Remember? Is getting full at the moment. Try to drag yerself out and away from The Screen and into the Real World.

Comment by Ned – Wednesday 23 March 2005, 9:53 AM

  Perhaps you did not notice... but I spent all day away from any computers. I did, in fact, spend some time looking at the stars. The only time I went near a computer was when I helped someone at the party install a program.

20.03.2005 – Sunday 20 March – Relaxing

• I had a bit of a sleep in, lazed in bed all morning, bought an Indian lunch in the city, and headed back home. Once home I wasted valuable time by watching “Old School”, a terrible DVD I found downstairs, before eating muesli for dinner, paying the rent, and realising with an increasing sense of stress that I’m pretty much screwed when it comes to assignments as I have no spare time, and heading to bed.

Comment by mum – Tuesday 22 March 2005, 8:01 PM

  Enough "spare time" to watch "Old School" whatever that is. Might be just a matter of organisation. Including organising time out for yourself.

Comment by Maz – Tuesday 22 March 2005, 9:54 PM

  All the spare time is used up with planned activities. One of which includes watching movies like "Old School" (which really is terrible). Other activities may include girlfriends, irc, visiting people at college, travelling and holidays.
  We just need a few less assignments from the uni, like none, and it would be fine.

Comment by Ned – Wednesday 23 March 2005, 9:48 AM

  I do not do uni work on Sunday. I do, however, watch bad movies.

21.03.2005 – Monday 21 March – Uni & More Uni

• Uni normal time in the morning, COMS4200 lecture, meet Craig, skip tute and go down to the labs, Maz and I to do the server and documentation and RFC comparison, Craig to do the client. Maz and I waste time going to Ville and seeing Clint, watching stupid comedy things etc. then spend all remaining evening coding. Go to Maz’s place, forward Hollie’s email, back to uni to do more work, then train home via Subway. Sent CD’s to Mum and deposited Google cheque – which was ridiculously complex, cost ten dollars, took half an hour, and required half a tree of paperwork.

22.03.2005 – Tuesday 22 March – Psychology, Sam & Indian Curry

• An unexciting day at uni was had, wherein I didst attend psychology lectures, where obvious facts were stated as if they were amazing breakthroughs. I came to the conclusion that psychologists are either very stupid, or so incredibly maladjusted that they have to rediscover things, through highly fallible studies and implausible conclusions, that everyone else has known forever. Maz and I then continued to reinforce the, perhaps not ideal, reputation we seem to be getting in the tutorials. Last week, Maz couldn’t help laughing at all the very wrong places – prompting jokes from the tutor, and this week, as a reason for why we rarely answer questions or enter any discussion, I told them we were IT students who don’t sleep and hence can’t coherently think. The tutor then concluded that we were just there for the women. I didn’t think it was a good idea to correct her – we are there because it’s apparently one of the easiest courses at UQ.

Night

• I bumped into Sam and Jess on the way to a nice dinner at an Indian place in West End. Sam says “Introductory Philosophy” is as easy, if not easier, than PSYC1030 – and can be passed by writing random things about random things without having ever heard of those things before.

23.03.2005 – Wednesday 23 March – Business Case Studies

• I headed into uni and tried to finish my CSSE3004 business case study by four o’clock, but couldn’t, partly because I did my INFS3202 practicals, and anything else I could think of, instead, and mainly because I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. Clint, Maz and I went out to Kieran’s at four, but I had to be back at uni by five for work, meaning I couldn’t stay long. After work, Maz and I spent hours trying to figure out what we were supposed to do with out business case study, along with everyone else in the lab. The general conclusion was that it is a ridiculous waste of time, serves no real purpose, and we may as well make up whatever seems best at two o’clock in the morning, as that’s as good as anything else. The GPS stapler then ran out of staples, and the whole lab was faced with the dismal prospect of a staple-induced failure until Maz and I braved Leo’s College and valiantly returned with Kipps’s stapler, saving us all.
  We left some time after three o’clock and I spent what little was left of the night at Maz’s place, sleeping in between waking, and remembering things I forgot to include in my business case study.

24.03.2005 – Thursday 24 March – Management Bad, Must Die

Morning

• I went to bed, on Maz’s couch, at four o’clock. I woke up when Hollie got up. I woke up an hour later when Cassie got up. I woke up an hour later when Sophie got up. This meant that I was not as refreshed as I otherwise may have been when Kieran arrived around nine o’clock, and that I did not feel a strong urge to concentrate during the three hours of CSSE3004 lectures (to put it politely) he drove me to. In fact, I felt a strong urge to lie down on the floor. Adding to the general badness of today, the air conditioning simply wasn’t, so it was also very hot and unpleasant.

Evening

• I bought the usual dinner from Chez Tessa with Maz, before heading to work, where I spent more time calculating the instantaneous force on a piston and discussing exhaust systems, high performance materials, vacuum cooling systems, and the differences between the Australian and American electrical codes than working. I also discovered why modern high performance materials aren’t used to replace metals in critical applications. Just in case I should think that my day had suddenly made an uncharacteristic change for the better, the bus to the station was full of annoying drunken singers, making it late and meaning I had to run to catch the train. Why do people who obviously can’t sing try to sing when they’re drunk? Why can’t they do something useful to society, like attempt suicide or move out west and plant trees?
  I was in a bad mood on the train home, which was unfortunate as I arrived back here to find the place kitted out with ultraviolet lights, and a party going on. This made the whites in my washing appear very white.

Comment by Cassie – Friday 25 March 2005, 11:21 PM

  Pssh. I got up at 7.
  
  Pussy.

Comment by Mum – Sunday 27 March 2005, 8:30 PM

  Oh dear, wonder what the whites in your eyes looked like?

25.03.2005 – Friday 25 March – Stradbroke

• Natalie phoned to see if I could meet her in the city tonight. Bronwen also sent an SMS and phoned to see if I would head out to Stradbroke.

• I, hereafter referred to as we, trained into the city, and from there to Cleveland, and from there to North Stradbroke, via a smallish ferry. We then drove to the other end of the island, set up camp, and proceeded to move sand into the tent, and relax.

26.03.2005 – Saturday 26 March – Stradbroke & Stuff

• Stradbroke-style things were done, such as walking, swimming and discoursing.

27.03.2005 – Sunday 27 March – Easter

• Markets, Swimming, Building, Four-Wheel-Driving, Sand dune climbing, and various other Stradbroke-esque activities were undertaken.

28.03.2005 – Monday 28 March – Brisbane Again

• We caught the 7 PM ferry back from Stradbroke, after one last swim – a pleasant ending to a pleasant weekend, apart from the stingers that stung me.

29.03.2005 – Tuesday 29 March – Sleepy & Cold

• I headed into uni, naively thinking that, as I was already in town, it would be more efficient to do some work at uni rather than head all the way home. I may have made a better decision had I taken into account the fact that I had no uni stuff with me, no motivation, and was too sleepy to think, but I didn’t, so I headed out to uni. Once there, I had a look at the burnt out block at St. John’s College, sat down in the labs and realised I didn’t feel like working, and headed back into the city for lunch at Govinda’s before having a short sleep on the train out here.

• Joe phoned to let us know he’s still alive and enjoying himself. He will be back in two and a half to three weeks. I also phoned Mum to wish her Happy Easter, and Bronwen, who isn’t feeling well.

Night

• It appears that our hot water service is either out of service, or no longer a hot water service. This would have been funny, seeing as it was Tonya who discovered the icy cold that has replaced our hot water, except it’s not because I need to shower too.

30.03.2005 – Wednesday 30 March – Old Boy

• I went and saw “Old Boy” at the Schonell with Maz, spending the night at his place. It was quite a disturbing movie, and very deserving of its 18+ rating, although perhaps not its three “fockers”. Somehow we managed to stay up until the wee hours of the morning, which, when coupled with the tiered waking habits of his roommates, leaves our hero tired.

31.03.2005 – Thursday 31 March – Bad Education

Day

• I had planned to do heaps of work on CSSE3004 today, but spent too much time messing around trying to do it “properly”, so didn’t end up getting a great deal done.

Evening

• Continuing the trend of disturbing movies, I headed into the Valley and saw “La Mala Educacion (Bad Education)” at the Palace Centro. While it was a well-shot and thought-provoking movie, I can’t say I liked the plot, which dropped this movie down to half an “Ong Bak” or three and a half “Fockers”.

Night

• Bronwen and I had a good discussion and a Windmill’s Pizza, before heading to her place for the night.

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