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Year View| Summary| Highlights| Month View| Friday 24 October 2003 (Day View)

Mon 20 Oct | Tue 21 Oct | Wed 22 Oct | Thu 23 Oct |   Fri 24 Oct   Sat 25 Oct | Sun 26 Oct | Mon 27 Oct | Tue 28 Oct |

24.10.2003 – Friday 24 October

11:02pm

• I did not have a very good day. I do not feel very good. I am not very happy. My feet are cold. I am itchy. My eyes are sore. I did not go to bed last night. I did not fully complete either of my assignments. I did not pass go and I did not collect $200. Instead, I sat for an hour and a half through a cold drizzle with many, many angry rugby fans at Kuraby train station while emergency services scraped dead people from the tracks and dodged lightning.

Uni

• After staying up all night working on my web assignment, which, because I stayed up all night working on it, is a bodged mess of incoherent rambling, I headed into uni in time for my midday COMP2500 tutorial. I remember thinking that my station was next, then noticing I was at uni – apparently staying up all night is not good for the brain. My COMP2500 tutorial was nice – I’ve missed the past two COMP2500 lectures due to sleeping in, so I had absolutely no idea what it was talking about, and, of course, it was my turn to present. Typically, for the first time, every other member of my group had also missed the last two lectures and had no idea what was going on either. Luckily, we’re all geniuses and managed to write enough blue circles for me to fake some very slight knowledge – and seeing as no one else seemed to know what they were doing either, it worked.

INFS1200 Assignment

• After this, and finding the COMP2500 lecturer to collect my marked assignment two, I headed down to the labs to check that my webpage was working. I know it’s very hard to believe, but it seems to be working without any problems – I’m not quite sure why, I guess the problems are waiting until marking time. Three quarters of the people in the lab were attempting to do query ten from our INFS1200 assignment. So much for anti-collusion, everyone was asking everyone else if anyone knew of anyone who’d managed to complete it. Had one person worked it out, I believe all of GPS would have known the solution within a minute. Despite collaborating with around twenty-five people across two labs, attempting to bribe a tutor and trying to find the lecturer, we still couldn’t get it done and I had to leave my submission missing the final query.

Govindas

• After the 5 PM assignment submission passed, I went and saw Clint and collected my marked COMP2500 assignment that I’d left with him the other day, and headed into the city and the Govindas Restaurant. Once I left the roofed area it began to rain, of course – not stopping until I got to the train station roof. Needless to say, it began to rain again when I got to Central Station and again exited the covered area. My meal at Govindas was quite yummy, and in stark contrast to the rest of today, I don’t seem to have become violently ill – yet.

Train

• I briefly considered heading out to Indooroopilly and watching a movie, but decided I’d likely be killed getting on the train, crossing the road, or fall asleep in the cinema and wake up in the back of a garbage truck on my way to recycling. In fact, I actually thought I was clever getting on the special train running express from South Bank to Woodridge – it would be a faster way to get home. I didn’t realise there was yet another silly rugby match on somewhere, and when we got to Roma Street, a quarter of a million crazed black and white painted rugby fans got on and we all headed south in our happy, happy party train. Shortly after, while a storm raged around them, a disturbed individual took a flying leap from Loganlea station and met the Airport train running express and rather rapidly, or so they tell me. I imagine there was something of a splat and the driver probably needs counselling. Brisbane City should run public service advertisements for bridge jumps – a cleaner, more exhilarating means of proving life exists after death without annoying one uni student and a quarter of a million rugby fans who’d not only seen their team lose, but had difficulties on the train getting to the game, with many missing the start due to delays.

Kuraby

• Because of the storm and lightning, emergency services had the power turned off before they’d go near the bones and body parts. Unfortunately turning the power off means all power from Kuraby to Beenleigh – and electric trains are rather powerless when they’re powerless. In typical Queensland Rail style, we were told to expect a ten to fifteen minute delay at Kuraby and half an hour later told to leave the train and stand on the windy, cold and roofless platform while it drizzled on us. Various people invented conflicting stories about buses and trains going in all sorts of directions and the crowd surged here and there trying to find them. Exactly why they refuse to tell everyone what’s going on, I don’t know. Eventually, after an hour or so, we were sent to another train and told it would continue in about five minutes, which it did half an hour later – but not until our original train had left without us. If I were a lawyer, or knew any sexy postgraduate law students, I should catch pneumonia and sue them to teach them a lesson. We were left standing on a platform in the rain, without being told what was going on, while a warm and dry train sat empty, and eventually transferred to another train, shortly before our original train left – without us. When I did eventually arrive at my station, there were nine or so empty buses lined up – presumably yet another example of Queensland Rail’s amazing malorganization skills.