...And Acceptance Activates Alleviation

*yawn* 3am. Who cares about sleep? Let's blog. It's been a long time coming, and boy do I have nothing constructive to talk about, therefore I'll blabber about my boring life like any other post. But before you read on, I've uploaded new pictures on Flickr. Check them out! http://www.flickr.com/photos/31331028@N06/

The past couple of days have been psychologically absurd for me. I recently watched the 5th installment of the Saw series, and certain images and scenes from that movie continue to stick with me. I shall refrain from talking about certain scenes to prevent any spoilage, but the unfortunate ending haunts me. It's quite frightening to put yourselves into the shoes of these unfortunate prisoners who have to contest for their lives in a harsh and perpetually agonizing environment. I keep placing myself in the shoes of the person in the final trap of Saw 5, and I think to myself "life's a bitch". Apart from the lingering ending, I enjoyed this movie because it was a wonderfully character driven piece rather than a generic gore-fest.

Now onto other things ...

I guess the main aspect of this post is 'acceptance'. Now by using that word, I feel I may have already established a serious tone to this post, but seldom do I ever discuss topics of a meaningful or serious nature, so sorry to disappoint you.

Last week I had a group interview at uni to join the Peer Networking Program, which is basically a program containing current students who's objectives are to assist the new students coming through and helping them adjust to university life. The group interview was really enjoyable, in fact the first task we had to do was to write down qualities or characteristics that describe us, however the qualities had to begin with each letter in our first name. It didn't have to be totally spot-on; a lot of it was about having fun. Here's what I was able to conjure up:

Left-Handed
Exuberant
Open-Minded
New-Things
Active
Responsive
Damaging

After reading out that last quality, the interviewers kept making jokes at me about trying not to break or damage anything until the end of the interview. Anyways a week has passed since the interview and I have finally got an e-mail yesterday informing me that my application got accepted and that I would be a Peer Networker for 2009 which I am stoked about. Some of you may be wondering why I would want to participate in such a program, and there are many factors that influenced my decision. One of the main reasons was to obtain a sense of involvement with the university, and without trying to sound like a Private, I'd like to serve the university that serves me. Throughout my secondary education, I never really took the iniative to involve myself with the extra-curricular activites and programs that the school had on offer, therefore I believe this Peer Networking Program at uni is a great opportunity to start getting myself involved. A lot of self-achievement and satisfaction can be obtained from this program by helping new students, both domestic and international, find their way through tertiary life.

Still on the topic of 'acceptance', I've also got myself a job ... like finally. After giving myself high hopes for Myer, and even higher hopes for the night-fill job at the local grocery store, I got myself a job at an AMF Bowling Center as a Guest Services Attendant. I had my first shift lastnight at 7pm till close and boy was it busy. If it wasn't for my ever so leniant and perseverant supervisor and my asian partner in crime Christian, I would have failed miserably. The customers were also friendly and very comforting which made it much easier. I hope it's like that for every shift.

What else ... ah yes exams.

Marketing - 12/11 - I currently sit on 47% for my overall assessment, however I still need to pass the final exam to adhere to the 40% exam guideline in the subject outline.
Economics - 13/11 - Depending on my results for my media assessment, I can slightly cruise through this final exam, or I may have to go nuts and bolts.
Programming - 21/11 - A mark of at least 40% must be obtained, or else a failure in the course will result, despite results in other assessments.
Web Systems - 25/11 - I have no idea what's going on in web systems. But I think I'll pass.

...And Altered Appearances Actuate and Allure

So it is currently 1 in the morning and I should be acquiring some much needed sleep but I think a blog post is in order. I'm actually in the middle of watching a documentary called 'Some Kind of Monster' which is based on the studio recording experience of Metallica's St. Anger album. Why am I watching it? I have no idea.

I have to wake up later or fairly soon and drive up to Beaumont Hills to check on a few things and then quickly head back to St Marys station and catch a train in time to uni for my Economics lecture. It's been a great 2 week absence from Economics but now its time to return to the lecture in which I'm most likely to fall asleep.

Some few months have passed since the handy acquisition of my Canon Ixus digital camera and within that period I have taken the time to thoroughly familiarize myself with the different settings and modes. In that time I've also taken a lot of pictures however there is no doubt in my mind that I am still a noob and am always experimenting. Regardless, I've recently registered at flickr which is an image hosting site. I've uploaded various photo's in which I've added some cool effects with the aid of photoshop. To be honest, my weekend was comprised of two things: marketing plan and photoshopping. One could say I've whored and abused my photoshop software. Either way, check out my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31331028@N06/

In other news it was Tim's birthday recently (8/10) and he was nice enough to perform a bunch of songs for us UTS students at the alumni green. At the same time he was also nice enough to almost get us killed while crossing the streets of Market City, getting in the way of speeding truck driver. Plenty of pictures are on Facebook, so check them out ! Still speaking of the same day, a good return to fitness was endured, doing 5 pushups everytime a fuckup occured in a game of hacky sack.

Just lastly, my web systems lecturer played this video on last Friday's lecture and I found it amazing. Basically it is a video of a math-a-magician acting like a human calculator. Check it out for yourself !

...And Algorithmic Agony Arrives

*/

\run program>/
...

\objective: PROGRAMMING ASSESSMENT #2
...


...

system check ..............................
system UNSTABLE.

*/

...And Another Account Amongst Amigos

It's okay everyone. I am alive. I can't imagine how terribly worried all of you must have been about my where-abouts, but fret no longer for I am still active. But in all seriousness, this blog is back with a different look because sometimes change is for the best ... and besides I was getting sick of the yellow. You feeling me?

Right now I am currently in the middle of Student Vacation which unfortunately goes for a time span of 1 week, unlike those MAC students who get an additional week ... those bastards. I thought there would be a balance of studying and social life, unfortunately the latter has outweighed the former significantly, which is why today I decided to stay home all day and catch up on academic objectives instead of being at the beach. Oh, and to eat ice-cream, people.

These past couple of days have been really great, specifically because of the uni results that have come out. Whilst I was unable to pwn any assessments or exams, I didn't fail any either, which is great for me because I really thought I would have.

Such is life:

Monday: Had the best Monday morning, because as you all should know, I just love being woken up by Jeaneline and Adrian to talk on the phone at 7am in the morning. Keep it up guys. In all seriousness, we had a discussion on what movie we would be watching and what time. We all agreed to watch Wall-E. I opted for an evening time slot, however we had no choice but to watch in the afternoon if Jeaneline was to make it to her mom's birthday dinner.

In the end, due to my lateness, we were heaps late to the movie (half an hour late) so we ended up just bumming at Rouse Hill with Ivan and Lawrence talking about a million things in the deserted food court. Afterwards we crashed Jeaneline's house in Kellyville which is freakin huge. When I pulled up on her driveway, we were like 'damnnnn'. You'd think Mariah Carey lived in that joint.

At around 6 we went back to Rouse Hill to pick up Tim, and then drove back the other way up to Castle Towers to have dinner at Hog's Breath. I should get a prize or some form of recognition for being the only noble person on my table to eat everything on the plate.

Tuesday: Since we were unable to watch Wall-E the day before, Adrian, Jeaneline and myself watched it today. My thoughts of the movie? While I thought it was really original, smart and entertaining, it's not something I'd watch again on my own accord. A good movie none the less. After the movie, we ate some churros because no visit to Rouse Hill is complete without the consumption of these spanish treats.

Afterwards I rushed back to St Marys soccer fields and met up with Jinno and Toby for a game of headache and more.

Wednesday: I made my way to Blacktown Library in the morning to study economics. I anticipated that the library would be packed full of HSC'ers, but to my surprise vacant tables came in plenty. While studying in the quiet room, the girl on my table sneezed right in front of me, so I politely said 'bless you' in a tone that I'm sure could be heard by anyone within 5 metres. I looked at her for a couple of seconds expecting her to say 'thank you', but what do I get? Nothing. She continued on studying as if I didn't say anything. How embarassing for me.

I also ran into Kirill and Angel (who scared the heck out of me) at the computers labs and then eventually met up with Jeaneline to go on an unplanned adventure around the world.

It's amazing how hard it is to find a place to eat. Actually, it's not 'finding' the place that is hard, it's more the process of 'thinking' of a place to eat. After almost a half hour of thinking where to eat, we decided to get a large pizza from the Pizza Hut at Glenwood (good timing too for their lunch special). We took the pizza to the park with the flying fox and talked about a million things.

We then went up to Kellyville to randomly crash Scarlett's place who I had only just met that day. Cheers for the chewy. After that we went joy-riding looking at pretty houses until we finally tried crashing Julienne's place. She wouldn't pick up her phone so we assumed she was uni. We also tried crashing Kevin's place but he was at work. So we went back to Blacktown and picked up Shirley and hung at Westpoint. Cheers for the easy-way ... even though you left your rubbish in my car.

Thursday: Woke up at 10, picked up Adrian and headed off to Jasmine's place for another movie marathon and bike riding. We watched:

• The Devil Wears Prada - Not the best movie out there, but still an enjoyable watch.
• Battle Royale - We watched this for the sake of entertainment despite the fact we had all seen this. Funny moments were spawned, including the 'over-exaggerated death' of one of the girls. Frankly I cannot concur with that observation.
• The Butterfly Effect- I hadn't seen this movie before, so obviously I was in strong agreeance with watching this. I never really thought much of Ashton Kutcher as an actor, but after watching this I like him more. A great movie despite all the questions I was asking throughout.
• Zathura - This was another movie I hadn't seen. It was pretty good overall but not overly spectacular.

We also went bike riding over Woodcroft, going back to the park and through the forest where we found a terrorist sitting on slab of rock discussing some sort of instructions to his leader. And to think I asked him for directions to the M7...

Friday: The one full day I commited myself to uni work and it was boring. The only highlight of my day was getting a call from Yen from work and talking about stuff. Thank you for saving me from going madly insane.