Insert witty comment here

Ouchie

2012-01-28T14:02:00.001+10:00

My feet hurt. Mostly because they're the colour of really sunburnt feet (a perfect description).

Internet blackouts

2012-01-18T20:42:00.002+10:00

Does anyone remember when I protested the ridiculous idea of
censorship in Australian internetting stuff by applying a blackout
screen to my blog? Well, I'm sure it reached a significant audience in
order to stop, or at least postpone, the silly notion in this country.
I'm not in, nor am I a citizen of, the USA, so I'm not going to bother
doing it again now, even though I am sure that were I to take part in
the protest, I'd definitely reach a larger audience than any of the
other sites taking part, like Wikipedia, for example.

Domestic travel

2012-01-13T10:34:00.001+10:00

Within the next 4 weeks, I'll be spending time at Byron Bay and in Melbourne.

Morning coffee

2012-01-13T10:29:00.001+10:00

I bought a latte this morning, which will come as no surprise to anyone who's had morning coffee with me. The barista drew a leaf on the foam. I realise that a leaf is probably one of the simpler designs, but it's better than nothing and a like coffee art.

German

2012-01-10T09:18:00.001+10:00

I've discovered that there are serious holes in my knowledge of German regarding the future tense (or tenses?) and prepositions. I came to this conclusion after attempting to write a text message that seemed to be mostly future tense and prepositions.

Social Media Exhaustion

2012-01-04T17:48:00.002+10:00

I joined another social media site today. I think I'm going to drown in a sea of social media soon. I've got profiles on Facebook, Google+, Diaspora, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogger, and now Path. I technically also have a profile on Foursquare, but I'm ignoring that one now as it seems pointless (why use a third-party program to publish details of check-ins to Facebook when I can do that directly?). I've never had a Myspace page, and never plan to.
Several years ago, when Twitter was new and fresh, I decided I didn't want to join because I didn't see a need for it. I regret that decision now because I have joined, and my preferred usernames were taken, which may not have been the case had I joined all those years ago. I joined it mainly for the puns, but I've stayed for the made-up stats, random trivia, and useless banalities.
I hope there aren't any new social media on the horizon. I don't know how I'd keep up with it all.

It's been a while

2012-01-04T12:48:00.001+10:00

My last post was in november. I completely missed december altogether. I'll try to use this more this year. Maybe it could be a resolution or something.

Should I be driving automatic cars?

2011-11-16T15:33:00.003+10:00

I've long been a fan of manual cars. I understand that automatics are easier to drive, especially in heavy traffic, but overall, I'd prefer to have a manual. Part of the reason for this is that I've had experience with horrible automatic gearboxes in the past that changed gears at stupid times, such as when going up hills, and part of the reason is that I like driving and I enjoy driving manuals. A friend, who has only got an automatic licence, recently pointed out that this doesn't really fit with my project and my studies. After all, my project has been all about automation. Is it strange for me to pursue a career path in automation, yet dislike automatics?

Polar 2

2011-11-10T23:10:00.001+10:00

Here's the result for those of you who don't have access to Matlab.

Polar Bear

2011-11-10T19:03:00.001+10:00

This is cool (found here):

function polarbear
% plots a polar bear in Matlab

function ec(h,k,a,b,ang)
% (h,k) is the center of the ellipse or circle
xp=a*cos(ang);
yp=b*sin(ang);
plot(h+xp,k+yp,'LineWidth',3,'Color','blue');hold on
end

% First plot curves that use theta between 0 and 2pi
ang=0:0.01:2*pi;
ec(5,0,2,2,ang),ec(-5,0,2,2,ang) % plot the feet
ec(2,0,1,1,ang),ec(-2,0,1,1,ang) % plot the hands
ec(0,9,4,3,ang) % plot the head
ec(1,10,0.25,0.25,ang),ec(-1,10,0.25,0.25,ang) % plot the eyes
ec(0,8,1,0.5,ang) % plot the nose

% Plot remaining curves for specific theta
ang=0:0.01:pi/2+3*pi/180; ec(5,0,2,5,ang) % plot the right legs
ang=pi/2-3*pi/180:0.01:pi; ec(-5,0,2,5,ang) % plot the left legs
ang1=pi:0.01:240*pi/180; ang2=-60*pi/180:0.01:0; ec(0,4,3,3.60,ang1),ec(0,4,3,3.60,ang2) % plot the arms
ang1=-24*pi/180:0.01:45*pi/180; ang2=pi-45*pi/180:0.01:pi+24*pi/180; ang3=254*pi/180:0.01:286*pi/180; ec(0,4,5,5,ang1),ec(0,4,5,5,ang2),ec(0,4,5,5,ang3) % plot the body
ang=0:0.01:155*pi/180; ec(2,11,1,2,ang) % plot the right inside ear
ang=26*pi/180:0.01:pi; ec(-2,11,1,2,ang) % plot the left inside ear
ang=-5*pi/180:0.01:156*pi/180; ec(2,11,1.25,2.25,ang) % plot the right outside ear
ang=25*pi/180:0.01:185*pi/180; ec(-2,11,1.25,2.25,ang) % plot the left outside ear
ang=pi/4:0.01:pi/2; ec(1,10,1,1,ang) % plot the right eyebrow
ang=pi/2:0.01:135*pi/180; ec(-1,10,1,1,ang) % plot the left eyebrow
ang=119*pi/180:0.01:2*pi+61*pi/180; ec(0,7,2,1,ang) % plot the mouth
ang=200*pi/180:0.01:320*pi/180; ec(0.75,8,0.75,1.5,ang) % plot the right smile
ang=220*pi/180:0.01:340*pi/180; ec(-0.75,8,0.75,1.5,ang) % plot the left smile
end

Bookmarking

2011-11-10T17:41:00.001+10:00

I'm currently sat on a bus, on my way home, and I've just witnessed a woman fold over the corner of the page in the book she was reading. I wanted to tell her to refrain from such ghastly book defacing, but I restrained myself, and instead I'm just ranting on my blog. Books deserve better treatment.

Nuts with extras

2011-10-20T16:30:00.001+10:00

I felt a bit peckish so I wandered over to the fruit cart thingo at uni and bought a small plastic container of cashews. After eating all of them, I noticed a small insect in the bottom of the container. I didn't ask for cashews with insect when I bought them, it was just a free added surprise. I didn't eat the insect, in case you were wondering.
In other news, I wasn't shortlisted for the dsto job that had a ludicrously long set of selection criteria that took ages to complete. How annoying. This means I'm going to be unemployed, at least initially, when I graduate. I hope it doesn't take too long to find a job, and I'd consider implementing a time limit in this country, except that foreign economies aren't going very well and it might be hard to find a job in europe.

Pain perdu

2011-09-28T11:23:00.001+10:00

I want to try French toast (pain perdu) with doughnuts. I think it'd work.

Swipe card

2011-09-16T14:26:00.001+10:00

My swipe card has locked me out of the lab I work in because I left the lab to get lunch but the card decided to stay on my desk in the lab. Very inconvenient, especially as most of the other people I know who use the same lab don't seem to be around at the moment.

Ouch

2011-09-14T23:46:00.001+10:00

I really hate mouth ulcers. I've had this one for several days now, and it's not a welcome feature in my mouth. It's on my tongue and is in a spot that seems to frequently rub against my teeth.

Free travel

2011-09-13T17:01:00.001+10:00

Today seems to be a day of free public transport, at least for me. The go-card readers on my morning and afternoon buses were broken. Free is nice.

Ulcers

2011-09-12T23:38:00.001+10:00

Ulcers aren't fun. I don't think that statement will elicit many arguments. I have a painful one on my tongue at the moment, and I was sensible enough to avoid putting balsamic vinegar on my salad this evening. That certainly wouldn't have been a pleasant experience.
Applying ulcer medication is another unpleasant experience. It stings for about a minute or so, but the longer term benefit is definitely worth it.
The specific stuff that I've been using lately isn't, as far as I'm aware, available in Australia, which is frustrating as it's a lot more effective than anything else I've ever tried. I'll have to visit France again to top up my supplies when the current bottle runs out.
I bring back boring souvenirs from France; ulcer medication and deodorant (I can't get the deodorant I like here either).

Social networks

2011-09-11T16:01:00.001+10:00

I am currently logged in on 3 social networks; facebook, google plus, and diaspora. Combine these with blogging and keeping up with other people's blogs (via google reader), and I've got quite an active online social presence/obligation. I'm starting to wonder if one day I'll cease to have time for an offline social presence.

Red pen

2011-09-09T17:30:00.001+10:00

My red pen stopped working today while I was marking prac reports. I always mark the pracs in red, but I was forced to change to marking in purple mid-report. I'll have to remember to replace marking red before my next prac session. Marking red has served me well. I've always used this same pen for these pracs, and it's a shame it didn't last out the semester as this will most likely be my last semester of tutoring.

Voting

2011-09-09T17:25:00.001+10:00

It's student union election week this week. As usual, there are lots of people around trying to convince people to vote (preferably for whatever group is on their tshirt).
Thankfully, it's friday and so the voting crap should be over by now, and next week will be back to normal.

Śpiący

2011-09-08T00:05:00.001+10:00

Jestem bardzo śpiący ale jeszcze nie śpię. Muszę iść spać wkrótce.jestem w pokoju.

Język

2011-09-07T16:56:00.001+10:00

Teraz piszę po polsku z listami polskich. Nie mogę pisać dużo bo mój polski nie jest bardzo dobry. Też, jestem na uniwersytetu i chciałbym jechać do pubu trivii.
Nie wiem co chcę jeść na obiad, ale wiem, oczywiście, że ja chcę jeść coś smaczne.

Les dictionnaires

2011-09-07T16:48:00.001+10:00

J'ai beaucoup de choix sur ma portable quand je veux choisir une dictionnaire; anglaise, française, allemande, polonaise, néerlandaise, espagnole, italienne, portugaise, turque, et coréenne. La dernière choix est un peu loin des autres et je ne pense pas que j'aille l'utiliser. Mais, je suis très content que je peux écrire en anglais, français ou polonais.
Il me reste une heure de mon td mais je croix que j'ai fait assez ici et je veux partir.
On est mercredi, donc ça veux dire que je vais au pub trivia ce soir.
Demain, je vais à la plage avec les chiens.

Uni computers

2011-09-07T16:07:00.001+10:00

The computers in the lab at uni are all new and shiny, with bigger screens than last semester. Now, if only they'd fix the air-conditioning system in this windowless room, it could actually be a pleasant place to work.

Bus etiquette

2011-08-23T16:35:00.001+10:00

A girl sitting two rows in front of me decided to mind the seat next to her for her friend. As this bus is full and a lot of people got on before her friend, she had to tell them that it was reserved because, understandably, they saw a vacant seat and wanted to sit.
I felt that her friend should have been on the bus earlier if he'd wanted a seat and it should be first in, first served when it comes to bus seating (except for injured, disabled, elderly or pregnant people, of course). I was hoping that one of the passengers would sit there anyway and say that he should have arrived earlier at the bus stop if he'd wanted a seat.
Is it possible to reserve seats on public transport for friends? Especially when some of those the girl rejected looked to be full-fare passengers and this girl and her friend are more than likely on concession fares.

Hello

2011-08-18T10:47:00.001+10:00

Coffee and podcasts. This part of the morning is good, but I will have to do some work today and hopefully it will be productive. I need to work out what it is that I actually need to do and how to do it. And before that, what out of the things I need to do have already actually been done.
But, for the moment, coffee and podcasts.

P.S. It might be stating the obvious, but sometimes I can't think of anything to write in the subject lines of these posts.

Good news for my project

2011-08-15T20:37:00.001+10:00

After several frustrating weeks of trying to work out how to get something to work that was working 6 weeks ago, I finally solved the last problem today (thanks to some help). Now the computer that I need to work on is willing to talk to the microscope. This means that I can finally start testing some new code and then writing and testing more code. This new code will undoubtedly cause more pain and frustration, but I'm in a better position now than I was last week.

Free!

2011-08-12T13:22:00.001+10:00

I'm just after eating a twix. It was extra delicious because it was free!

Ouchie

2011-08-11T15:42:00.001+10:00

I have a small paper cut in the joint crease of my right pinkie. It's a tiny cut, but because of its location, it's occasionally painful; like when I dry my hands after washing them and the towel's friction pulls the wound apart.
I collected this injury while handing out tutorial worksheets while tutoring. This means it happened at work. Am I eligible for workers' comp?

Książki itd

2011-08-11T14:21:00.001+10:00

I've bought some books online and they're currently on their way to Germany.
In completely unrelated news, je me trouve chez la coiffeuse pour me couper les cheveux. I teraz, piszę po polsku.

Watchless moles

2011-08-09T10:24:00.001+10:00

This is now my fifth day without a watch. Sure, I can check the time on my phone, but I like wearing a watch and it's easier to look at the time on it rather than extract my phone from my pocket and press a button to wake it up just to see the time. I also dislike leaving home without my phone, keys, watch and wallet. Leaving just one of those behind makes me feel as though I've forgotten something.
I've just got on a bus - I typed the paragraph above while waiting at the bus stop. The gocard things aren't working on this bus, so I've scored a free ride to uni. In other good news, I visited a doctor this morning to have some moles checked and they're all good; no need to have them lopped off.

More updates

2011-08-08T09:24:00.001+10:00

I forgot to mention in that last post that my watch battery is still flat because I haven't had a chance to have a replacement installed. I will have to get around to it soon though, as I don't like not wearing a watch.
More news: I like my new mp3 player. I bought a new one because it was becoming increasingly difficult to read the display on my old one, which made it frustrating to read the menu, or see what was actually being selected. My new one is a creative zen x-fi2. My only complaint with it so far is that the touch screen requires more pressure than what I'm used to, but I'm sure I'll get used to it.

Updates

2011-08-08T09:07:00.001+10:00

I still need a haircut, as I haven't been to the hairdresser since I write that last post about needing to visit one.
I also need to visit a doctor to have some moles checked out, just to make sure that they're not evil ones, or to chop them off if they are. I have an appointment for that tomorrow morning.
I still haven't found the book that went missing some time ago, which is rather annoying because I would like to know where it is and I'd like to finish reading it. I need to buy more annales du disque-monde*.
Haigh's orange pastilles are delicious.
I haven't gotten around to reading a french version of dangerous liaisons that I've been lent. I wonder if it's as good as the original english. :-)
Lastly, I really need to finish writing a job application that I started ages ago and have put off quite a lot. It's a painful process.

*discworld in french.

Fryzjera

2011-08-07T17:57:00.001+10:00

Myślę że muszę jechać do fryzjera wkrótce.

Coffee

2011-08-05T10:32:00.001+10:00

As an addition to the last post, the coffee was delicious. One of the best I've had in a long time.

Python

2011-08-05T10:21:00.001+10:00

I'm technically now two weeks into my project. I've done nothing of note. The first week was spent gaining access to the lab and the computer on which I need to work. So far this week, I've managed to find the files that I need to work on, which required updating some software, which in turn required getting admin privileges on that computer.
Now, I've got the privileges, updated the tortoise svn software, and found the files. I got to uni this morning thinking I could spend some time testing some python code that I wanted to test last week, only to find that there are issues getting the python commands to work. I've worked out a way around this problem, though it's somewhat inconvenient, but at least I should be able to test the code.
The code isn't working, which shouldn't be too surprising except that an older version that I knew was working also now returns errors and I have no idea why.
So, I've left the computer and installed myself at the nearest coffee establishment, where I'm writing this post.

Morning coffee

2011-08-01T11:14:00.001+10:00

I purchased my morning coffee at Mr Beans today. Normally the quality is fairly high, but today it wasn't as good as usual. It wasn't a bad coffee, but it just wasn't up to their usual high standards, unfortunately.

Assessment

2011-07-25T22:37:00.001+10:00

First day at uni for the semester and I'm already reading through a paper that I need for a piece of assessment due on Wednesday. It's a strange assignment that seems unrelated to the actual course and as far as I can tell, the only point of it is to convince us that the lecture method used in this course is more effective than other methods of instruction; the assignment is on teaching and learning methods. The subject is biomedical instrumentation.

Le Semestre Commence

2011-07-25T09:45:00.002+10:00

Today is the first day of the uni semester. This semester, as with the rest of this degree, I'm doing two subjects and a lot of tutoring. My earliest class this semester starts at the early hour of 10am, but one of my subjects is a project-research subject, so it doesn't have set classes, but it will require spending a significant amount of time at uni between classes, so I wouldn't be surprised if my timetable ends up being a lot fuller in practice than it looks on paper.

Other news

2011-07-22T20:43:00.001+10:00

In other news, eating a meal while wearing glasses is strange. I don't do it very often, so I'm not sure if it's something I'm likely to get used to any time soon.

New words

2011-07-22T20:34:00.001+10:00

Apparently a female loup-garou is a louve-garou and a female nain is a naine.
The second one makes sense, but is a female loup really a louve?
These words have recently entered my vocabulary. (I knew loup but not loup-garou.)

Job applications

2011-07-21T14:13:00.001+10:00

I'm in the middle of writing another job application. This one is taking ages and I once again wish I could be honest and answer "because I want a job" in response to the question "why should we hire you?".

Chocolate

2011-07-21T13:08:00.000+10:00

I made my own hot chocolate today using powder that I bought at San Churro. It's definitely no where near as good as the hot chocs you get when you visit a store, but it's good enough to quell the cravings, and better than the hot chocs you get at regular cafes, which are usually little more than weak hot cocoa. Next time I make one (probably the last considering how much powder I have left), I'll have to add a scoop of ice-cream.

Lack of chocolate

2011-07-20T22:24:00.001+10:00

I didn't have a hot chocolate today, and it was definitely missed. I could have made one myself, but I didn't get around to it, and it wouldn't be quite the same. I might have to make one tomorrow though to quell these cravings.
I think I could live quite comfortably in Melbourne, with frequent hot chocs.

The Tan

2011-07-18T19:11:00.000+10:00

Last Tuesday, I found myself in the city's botanic gardens, locally known as the "Tan". I took a few photos in the gardens, but most of them with my camera. The pics included with this post are the few I took with my phone.

More lego photos

2011-07-18T18:22:00.001+10:00

I thought I'd upload some more pics from the Lego exhibition.

More lego photos

2011-07-18T18:17:00.001+10:00

I thought I'd upload some more pics from the Lego exhibition.

Another chocolate shop

2011-07-18T18:12:00.001+10:00

Current evidence suggests that I'll have to return to Melbourne in order to complete my chocolate comparisons.

Nique la magasin

2011-07-18T18:09:00.000+10:00

This shop's name amused me when I first saw it 2 years ago, and I still think it's funny that a shop exists with this name.
The first time I noticed it was when I was walking up the street with a group of frenchies.

Lego exhibition

2011-07-18T13:27:00.000+10:00

I went to the lego exhibition today, and there were a few interesting pieces, but overall I was disappointed because the gallery and display were very small. I definitely didn't feel a though I got value out of the $15 entry fee.
Anyway, I've added a couple of pics of some of the better exhibits.

Chocolate Photos

2011-07-18T10:48:00.001+10:00

Here are the rest of the chocolate post's pics.

Chocolate

2011-07-18T10:47:00.001+10:00

I thought I'd send a few photos to consolidate my chocolate tests over
the past week.
I've added the attachments in reverse chronological order, but I have
no idea at this stage what order they'll appear in once the blog post
has been posted.
* My first attempt at posting this came up with an error because there
were too many pics attached, so I'll post this one and send another
with with the other photos.

Test post

2011-07-15T19:16:00.001+10:00

I'm writing this to test to see if I can still post to my blog via an email.
I know I haven't written a post in a very long time. I haven't forgotten about the blog, but I just haven't gotten around to writing anything, and it's definitely suffering from shorter posts appearing as facebook status updates instead of blog posts.

Je suis toujours étudiant...

2011-06-02T14:14:00.004+10:00

I'm at uni again, working on an assignment, which isn't too surprising considering that it's the second last day of the semester's teaching period, and it's relatively common to have assignments due on the last day. The current assignment involves a lot of research and writing, and I'm not exactly sure of what else to write. I'm fairly certain that I need to add a few more things, but the problem is that the sections in which I could add more easily are already at, or near, their individual word limits. I don't think the word limit is all that strict though, so I could probably go over without any repercussions.

I teraz, chciałbym pisać coś w języku polskim. Nie wiem dlaczego. Może bo mogę. Ale, nie mogę pisać dużo bo nie znam dużo słowy, szkoda. Też, nie pamiętam dużo słowy polski że wiedziałem kiedy mówiłem częściej po polsku (kiedy mieszkałem w polsce, na pewno, i musiałem mówić po polsku wszystki dzien).

Ok, I'd better get back to writing this assignment, as it's not going to complete itself, unfortunately, and I don't want to go home today until it's all done, as I won't have a lot of time tomorrow to work on it between lectures and tutoring. Also, I need to restart my computer in order for updates to take effect.

Over a month?

2011-05-31T09:02:00.004+10:00

I'm having a very slack year as far as this blog is concerned. Until I checked the post that I wrote last night, I hadn't realised that it'd been over a month since my last post. I knew it had been a while, but not that long. I'll try to remember that the blog exists and post from time to time, but as a friend recently pointed out, a lot of the things that we once would have posted to our blogs now get posted instead to facebook.

The last post, about the book, was also the 666th post on this blog.

Book?

2011-05-30T23:44:00.001+10:00

Has anyone seen my copy of La Huitième Sortilège? I haven't read much of it since I returned from my holiday at the start of the year. The main reason for not having read much of it is that I don't actually know where it is. It's rather annoying because I'm part way through it and I'd like to finish it. I usually like to read before going to sleep at night but I've been doing sudoku puzzles instead because I had a book of them near my bed, but I've now finished all of the puzzles that are hard enough to bother with. I want my book.
In other book-related topics, I have only now realised that I forgot to go to fnac while in France in order to buy more annales du disque-monde. Merde.
If I had my book, I wouldn't have written this blog post, so I guess my loyal readers are grateful for its temporary geographical uncertainty.

Boulot

2011-04-27T10:04:00.002+10:00

Je viens de faire une application pour un boulot qui commencerait en janvier ou fevrier l'année prochaine. C'est un peu bizarre d'ecrire une application maitenant pour une telle longue commencement; tous mes autres boulots ont commencé la semaine après ou peut-etre deux semaines. On m'a dit qu'il y a beaucoup de travaux pour mon métier. J'espère qu'on a raison. Fin, je n'ai besoin de trouver qu'un boulot, donc la chose la plus importante, c'est qu'il y aura un boulot pour moi.

merde

2011-04-10T11:38:00.002+10:00

Je suis à la fac et on est dimanche. J'était ici hier pendant plusiers heures. Je n'aime pas passer tout le weekend en faisant des devoirs, mais je ne crois pas que j'aie le choix. Il faut les finir, et il y a trop de choses chez moi qui m'empêchent de les faire. Il ne me reste que 7 ou 8 mois d'etudes, à priori, et j'attends le fin avec impatience. Je voudrais bien avoir un boulot où je vais pendant la semaine comme presque tout le monde, et où je peux faire n'importe quoi pendant les weekends.

Bon. Je dois finir ce devoir pour que je puisse commencer un autre...

Ouch

2011-04-04T21:51:00.002+10:00

I've learnt something tonight. If you develop a small blister on your foot because you wore rubber thongs and then wear socks with shoes the following day, don't just rip the sock off quickly in order to access an itchy area on your foot just in case the small blister has decided at some point to weep and/or ooze, and form a scab that is intimately attached to the sock. Ouch.

USB key

2011-03-24T23:12:00.001+10:00

You'll all be relieved to know that I have found my usb memory stick. It was in my cow mug. I use the mug as a place to temporarily store small objects, like usb keys, because it's a cool mug but it's not a very practical shape for drinking out of, especially with the bell hanging from its neck.

Lift etiquette

2011-03-23T18:41:00.001+10:00

If you're only going up or down one floor, why take the lift? Especially in a busy building with only 2 slow lifts. It's just lazy and annoying. In the case of the building I'm referring to, it's usually much quicker to walk up the stairs 1 or 2 floors than to wait for the lift.

Of course, exceptions exist if you happen to have a disability, or you have large, bulky, or heavy objects to transport, or there are not any nearby stairs, such as in the building R lives in.

Text

2011-03-21T18:46:00.002+10:00

I'm just after hearing an Iranian at uni say "text" but pronounced as "teck-us". Do speakers of Persian generally have trouble with consonant clusters at the ends of words or is it just the 'xt' combination?
I haven't had a lot of experience with Persianophones* but I know that they rarely (if ever) begin a word with a consonant.

* It's a word now.

People

2011-03-21T16:31:00.001+10:00

People irritate me. Especially the general public. I seem to have spent some time recently behind slow people, either driving or in queues or simply walking on footpaths. Why must they get in my way? Why is there an unwritten social rule that requires me to be polite? The woman in the queue in front of me in ties servo this afternoon took ages deciding which packet of cigarettes to buy. Not deciding on a type of brand but whether she should get the 20 or 30 pack! Gah! It's not a difficult decision and there's no reason why she should take up valuable moments of my time!

At Uni

2011-02-28T16:56:00.001+10:00

I'm at uni for the first time this semester, and also the first time since the recent floods. Not a lot has changed since last year, aside from a change in the shape of the river banks. But, one of the computer labs that I've spent a lot of time in has been filled with macs! The real computers have gone! Gah!

2 years

2011-02-16T16:38:00.001+10:00

Exactly 2 years ago today I landed in Australia after a long stint away. Back then, my plan was to complete the 3 years ahead of me at uni and then return, as soon as possible, to France. Towards the end of last year, I was starting to feel that maybe I'd be content with living here and just visiting France/Europe for the odd holiday every couple of years, however, now, after returning again, I'm back at the stage where my relocation to France can't come soon enough.
I hope there are decent jobs there for my chosen field. I definitely do not feel like working there again in the ESL industry (it's an acceptable industry in other lands, but it is horrible in France).
The awful and expensive public transport system in Brisbane that I'm currently a passenger on isn't helping matters. I think it's even more expensive than the public transport system in London, especially when compared to other costs in both cities.

J'étais où?

2011-02-14T21:15:00.002+10:00

I used my phone's GPS today, in Brisbane, and was amused to see the last location on the screen. When the system's first switched on, the screen shows the last location for a few moments until it finds the satellites and updates the display. Well, when I switched it on, the last location was Casablanca.

Movement

2011-01-29T01:00:00.000+10:00

Either the train is moving or the world is moving around the train.
Either way, I'm glad I'm facing forwards.

The Monument & Wimbledon

2011-01-29T00:55:00.000+10:00

I'm on the train now.

While in London, I climbed the stairs to the top of The Monument. As far as I can tell, that's its official name. It's the monument to the London fire, and its height is the distance from the base to the point were the fire started. I can't remember exactly how tall it is, but it's 311 stairs to the top. I received a certificate to prove that I managed to make it all the way to the top. The view was nice from the top and I took some photos, but I wish they'd equipped the viewing balcony with thicker, solid posts so that I wouldn't imagine plummeting to my grisly death.
For those in London, it's located near the tube station called 'monument'.

I spent yesterday afternoon at Wimbledon, a part of London I'd never been to before. It seems like a nice area. We went to an all-you-can-eat Indian, Chinese, Thai, and Italian restaurant. Quite a combination of cuisines! The place was run by Indians and, unsurprisingly, the Indian section was the best.
I saw quite a lot of the common from a balcony on the 12th floor, but I was unable to spot any Wombles.

Leaving England

2011-01-29T00:35:00.000+10:00

I'm at Pancreas station in London, waiting for the boarding to start for my train to Paris. I've enjoyed my short sojourn in England; London and Cambridge.
On negative point is the crap I had to endure yesterday evening in my attempt to get home on the tube. I've never been a huge fan of the tube, as I feel it's slow and inefficient at the best of times, but yesterday, out of the 3 lines I could catch home, 2 were completely shut down due to a trespasser on the tracks and the other was delayed due to signaling problems. All this in peak hour.
Off to board now.

In Cambridge today

2011-01-26T19:54:00.000+10:00

I arrived in Cambridge yesterday evening by train. The train was comfortable and fast; it took only 45 minutes. I feel that the ticket price of 20 pounds each way is a bit steep. I haven't had a chance to explore the town yet, but that's on the agenda for today.
I spent yesterday (until my train here, of course) in London where I looked around at the Barbican centre, which surprised me by not actually having a barbican at all, and then I went down to The Monument and I climbed the 311 stairs to the top and received a certificate certifying that I'd done so. (actually, as far as I'm aware, there was no actual verification process to check if you'd made it to the top or just turned back halfway; the certificate was handed to you upon exit.)

I was fairly lazy during my last few days in Paris because I got sick. I still caught up with a few friends over those days but I didn't explore many places or wander around the city as much as I'd planned to.

A l'aéroport de Cracovie

2011-01-17T19:12:00.001+10:00

I'm currently waiting near the gate assigned to my flight. It was scheduled to take off at 10.40am (it's currently 10am here) but it's been delayed until 11.30am. The delay has been on the screen for some time, and I hope it doesn't follow the fates of 3 earlier flights which were cancelled. The reason for these problems is poor visibility, and it's hard to see anything outside from the windows here.
In other news, I went to a restaurant last night called 'U Aniolów' in Ustron, a resto known for its pirogi. I had pirogi ze szpinakiem, oliwkami i feta (pirogi with spinach, olives and feta). It was delicious, so I know why it's a well-known resto.
Well, I'd better finish there. I have some waiting to do.

Herbaciarnia

2011-01-15T01:22:00.000+10:00

I'm currently sitting in a tea room in Gliwice. It didn't exist when I lived here. In fact, there have been quite a few changes here. There's a new shopping centre. It's not huge, but a decent size for this city, and it's clean and the toilets are free (a novelty in Europe, especially the east).
As well as this tea room, there's a vegetarian restaurant, where I had a delicious meal yesterday (Zloty Osiol), so the city seems to be becoming slightly more alternative. The guy running this tea room has long hair and a shaggy beard, and the girl in the vegie resto had a flower tattoo covering most of her back. This is quite a big step forward compared to my memories of this town.
The shopping centre even has a H&M. It used to be necessary to travel to Wroclaw or Kraków if you wanted to shop there. One thing I found odd though was the chocolate shop in this new shopping centre: it sells delicious hot chocolates and other chocolate-related products, and generally portrays itself as a fine Belgian chocolaterie, but it's called 'Mount Blanc'. I realise that one can call one's shop whatever one wants, but I usually don't think 'ah, Belgian chocolate' when I see/hear 'Mount Blanc'. Maybe that's just me though.
Today's my last day in Gliwice as I'm going to Bielsko-Biala this evening (via Sosnowiec). Tak, ten wieczor, jade do Bielska-Bialej, przez Sosnowca. Poniedzialek, musze jechac do Krakowa bo bede jechac do Paryzia na samolocie.

Updates

2011-01-07T07:49:00.001+10:00

As I left the cafe, I heard the unmistakable introduction of the venga bus.
Aussi, j'ai acheté un billet pour Wroclaw. Je prends le bus.

Cafes with free wifi are good

2011-01-07T04:52:00.001+10:00

I'm currently sitting in a cafe with free wifi, hence the number of recent posts. The song being played at the moment is YMCA.

Skiing update

2011-01-07T04:31:00.001+10:00

The name of the place just south of Vienna where I went skiing is 'Stuhleck'. The place seems to have a canine mascot who strongly resembles a beagle.

Wroclaw-Breslau

2011-01-07T04:29:00.001+10:00

Je pars bientot à Wroclaw. Je ne sais pas comment j'y vais parce que je pourrais prendre l'autobus ou le train. Le train est plus chèr, prend 2 heures en plus et me ferait changer au milieu. Donc le bus est préféré mais on ne sait pas s'il y a une siège disponible et la départ du bus arrive à 3h du matin, donc on ne veut pas aller à la station sans un billet reservé.
Donc je vais à Wroclaw mais je ne sais pas comment. On verra.
Aussi, à cause d'être à Vienne, je souhaite que je parlais allemand.
À la station du ski où je me trouvais hier, il y avait une pancarte qui disait 'Single-Spur' (ou peut-être c'était 'Singel-Spur'). J'y était avec un ami viennois et je lui ai demandé, 'Single-Spur veut dire quoi?'. Il ne m'a pas compris car je l'avait prononcé comme le mot 'spur' en anglais. Il a rigolé quand je lui ai montré les mots écrits. En fait, cette histoire veut dire qu'il ne comprend pas mon dialect unique.

Time stamp

2011-01-06T03:51:00.000+10:00

Just a note to point out that all the posts that I've so far posted from Europe have actually been sent 9 hours earlier than the time marked on the blog post. This is because I'm in Europe, but my blog's timezone is GMT+10, and I can't be bothered changing the settings.

Skiing

2011-01-06T03:41:00.000+10:00

I like skiing. I'm not particularly good at it, which isn't helped by the huge amount of time between my opportunities to go skiing, but I enjoy it.
I went skiing today in a place called Stahlek or something like that. It definitely started with an S and contained an H, along with some other letters.
It was a nice place, and the view from the top of the mountain was fantastic. I'd attach a photo but I forgot to take my camera with me.
I managed to acquire an impressive bruise on each of my upper thighs after some (many) arguments with gravity, all of which gravity won. The one on my left thigh is bigger than the right, and both are more like raised welts than mere bruises.
In spite of these injuries, I want to go skiing again.

Et maintenant...

2011-01-05T08:08:00.001+10:00

... je pense que je devrais écrire un message en français après quelque jours en France.
Je savais que j'avais oublié pas mal de mots et que mon niveau avait baissé un peu mais je suis allé à une crêperie avec des amis et c'était très difficile à comprendre et à suivre la conversation. Je faisais mieux à la fête pour sylvestre.
Quand je reviens en Australie, je dois pratiquer cette langue plus souvent.

In Austria now, and other stuff

2011-01-05T07:02:00.001+10:00

I'm in Austria at the moment. Tomorrow should involve skiing, and today was spent in Vienna. I don't actually know where the skiing will take place other than somewhere just south of Vienna, but as I'll be travelling with an Austrian friend, I don't really need to know the details exactly. Reminds me of my skiing experiences in France. I don't know the names of either of the two places there where I went skiing, only that a place called Sept Laux was near the second, but not where we went.

So far I've been in Europe for a week, and I'm enjoying my time here. It's been fantastic catching up with friends around the place, and it's reaffirmed my desire to live here again. I don't know when that will happen, but I'm determined to make it a 'when' and not an 'if'.

I'd been in Europe just over 12 hours when I received a suggestion for a change in my itinerary; namely adding Nice and three cities in Morocco to my plan. I thought about it for a day or so, and decided to accept the change, so now I've got flights to incorporate these 4 cities into my trip. I've never been to any of them before so it'll be great to see somewhere new, and I'll be travelling with a Moroccan friend, so I'll have a personal guide.

At the airport

2010-12-28T07:00:00.000+10:00

I'm now at the airport waiting to in through customs and then board etc.
In the queue waiting to order coffee, I realised that I'd left my serious coat at home, with my gloves and beanie in the pockets. Thankfully, the coat's now on its way. I just hope it gets here with plenty of time. I still need to visit the duty-free desk to get the money back on the tax I paid on my netbook.

Keyboard

2010-12-24T14:44:00.003+10:00

Mogę pisać po polsku teraz z listami polskiego (i na nowym komputerze). Będę w polsce wkrótce i jestem bardzo szczęśliwy!
Hmm... I've just thrown that above sentence through google's translator to check the grammar etc and it's produced a rather interesting translation for the bit "będę w polsce". Have a go yourselves and see what you get for that. (Actually, it only seems to work if you put in the whole sentence above, not just that phrase. It does it correctly if you only put "Będę w polsce" into the translator".)

I would like to visit Greece one day, but I won't get time on this trip. I'll have to save it for a future holiday.

Je peux aussi écrire en français grace à la choix de clavier. Je pouvais, depuis longtemps, le faire sur mon autre ordi, mais je viens de changer la selection de clavier sur mon nouveau ordi. Et oui, je veux bien aller en Grèce un jour, mais je ne pourrai pas y aller cette fois.

Google chrome me demande si je veux que cette page est traduit en anglais parce que la texte est en français. Je sais que j'écris en français maintenant, mais parce que c'est moi qui l'ecrit, je pense que je peux le traduire moi-meme, mais merci chrome quand meme.

Je pars mardi! C'est bientot!

Edit:
According to google translator, "Będę w polsce wkrótce" = "I'll be in Poland soon" (which is what I thought it meant, so we're in agreement there), but "Będę w polsce wkrótce i" = "I'll be in Greece soon and". What a difference the word "and" seems to make here. I thought it was just a simple conjunction, but apparently it has geographical power as well as the power to join to ideas into one sentence. Amazing.

Macarons

2010-12-22T15:46:00.001+10:00

It's Wednesday today, which means the markets are on in the square in front of the casino. This means that macarons are able to be purchased. I worked today and therefore had ample opportunity to purchase there macarons but I forgot all about the markets until I saw them from the bus window on the way home. Drat.
I got over my annoyance quickly when I remembered that I'll be in Paris in a week's time, where macarons are readily available, and delicious.

GOMA

2010-12-20T20:20:00.002+10:00

I went to GOMA yesterday, as well as one of the exhibitions in the old art gallery next to GOMA. I thoroughly enjoyed wandering around the exhibitions and wish I had time over the next few days to go again. My favourite piece of art from my very first visit to GOMA was back - the infinity room. Last time I went there they had removed it for a special exhibit, which was good, but I missed the room.
One of the amazing temporary exhibits there yesterday was a room full of finches flying between perches suspended from piano wire which in turn was connected to an amplifier. I spent quite a long time in the finch room, and highly recommend the experience to everyone. The sounds from the perches combined with the finches' chirping needs to be heard rather than described.
In another room, the Jungle Book was playing, with each different character speaking a different language. The small kid spoke Spanish, the bear spoke Hebrew, the puma Arabic, and German, French and Greek were spoken by some of the elephants, etc. I liked it, and I found the concept interesting because each character spoke his/her own language but obviously understood what the others were all saying. My only criticism of this installation was that the volume was a bit low, which made it difficult to hear what they were saying, and so it wasn't initially obvious to hear that they were all speaking different languages.
I was amused by the video of a McDonald's store being flooded, and by the Chinese convenience store. The slippery slides were a bit of fun, but very bumpy.

New netbook

2010-12-09T14:37:00.003+10:00

I purchased a netbook yesterday, an ASUS EeePC. I went for Asus because they seem to have a good reputation for netbooks in the online forums I checked and I had a couple of recommendations from friends too.
I'm writing this on the new gadget now. I like its weight (or lack thereof), size and general portability, as I intend to port it around quite a lot. I plan to take it to uni with me next year, and also take it on a mini tour of Europe after Christmas.
Before my purchase yesterday, I had planned to partition the hard drive and set up a dual booting system with windows and ubuntu, but I don't think I can be bothered doing that now, and I might leave that for when I format my laptop (which is long long overdue).

Prawn paste perhaps?

2010-12-07T09:47:00.002+10:00

I went to a cafe at the weekend with some friends and we ordered a dip platter to share. These were tasty, and we were certain that the pink one contained roe and only roe, as far as animal matter was concerned. I should have asked the staff to confirm this, but didn't, and foolishly tried some of it. It was delicious, and I only ate a small amount, but there must have been some shellfish in the dip. I can point to the general discomfort and stomach cramps that I suffered on Saturday night and Sunday morning as experimental proof of this. I'm feeling back to normal now, but even yesterday, I felt as though I'd pulled a muscle in my lower abdomen. It seems like my reaction to shellfish is getting worse and worse; gone are the days when I could have tried just a little to test the taste and not feel too uncomfortable afterwards.

I wish I could swap this food intolerance for an intolerance to a food that I don't like to eat.

Here it is

2010-12-02T22:03:00.001+10:00

Here is the article that I heard people speaking about on the radio.

Czekolada

2010-12-02T18:15:00.001+10:00

I heard on the radio this afternoon that the world's chocolate consumption is unsustainable, and because of this, it may become as expensive as caviar. I have two things to say about this:
1. Gah!
2. Other people need to stop eating chocolate!

Rainy beach

2010-11-20T12:31:00.000+10:00

I'm just after arriving at the beach, where I'll be until Monday, and it's raining. This is a pain as it's not good weather for walking along the beach with the dogs.
The unit's fantastic as it's just been renovated. It's a bit of a novelty here to have strange things like bedroom doors that close and an oven that doesn't need to be operated with a screwdriver.

Unfortunate ink

2010-11-19T17:25:00.001+10:00

I was installed on one of the couches in the foyer of the cinema complex earlier today waiting for friends to arrive when a chap with a tattoo on his leg sat down on the adjacent couch, with his tattoo in my field of vision. The tattoo is a sentence, running almost the entire length of his lower leg, in quite large letter, proudly stating: Love Conquer's All
Yes, that's exactly how it was emblazoned on his skin.

Update

2010-10-31T01:12:00.001+10:00

I have searched my room, as much as I could, and I'm fairly certain that the huntsman didn't go in there. To hopefully prevent this situation from happening again, I 'lightly' sprayed some surface spray over strategic areas, like my door and door frame. I also sprayed some in different parts of my room and managed to flush out two small and insignificant spiders who promptly died. I don't like killing spiders, but I can't let them stay in my room.
I'm now waiting for the room to settle down so that I can go to sleep without dying from the fumes. I've got the door and windows wide open and the ceiling fan's on.

Not an improvement

2010-10-31T00:41:00.001+10:00

I've just checked my door to see if the spider is still there and it's not. The advantage of this situation is that it's not on my bedroom door. The huge disadvantage now is that I don't know where it is. Has it gone into another room? Has it gone out into the garden? Or has it moved into my room, closer to my bed and where I'd like to be sleeping?

Another spider

2010-10-31T00:34:00.001+10:00

I'm definitely not a fan of coming home late at night to find a large huntsman spider on my bedroom door. I don't intend to kill it, but I don't know how to persuade it to find a better place to sit, preferably somewhere far away from my bedroom. I don't hate huntsman spiders, but I don't appreciate it when they visit my bedroom.
I also don't like it when they decide to cling to my bath towel, like a medium-sized one did just a few days ago.

Waiting again...

2010-10-29T20:54:00.001+10:00

I'm currently sitting at a busway stop, with a 45min wait ahead of me because the bus I need has become hourly. On a Friday night. It really feels like I'm living in a country town at times. Maybe one day this place will develop a decent public transport system. In the meantime, I have to wait.

Stuff

2010-10-24T11:53:00.003+10:00

It's been a while since my last blog post. I have been consuming coffee, but not posting about it for some reason. I feel that my hypothesis is correct, and therefore it's not necessary to continue the experiment. I have been consuming coffee, of course, although not on a daily basis as some days have been far too hot for a warm milky beverage.
Other than the coffee, I've been busy this month with a lot of extra tutoring (well, mostly just extra marking) and assignments that need to be completed soon, given that tomorrow heralds the last teaching week of the semester.
At this very moment, I'm taking a break from reading a chapter of a book describing error correction in microwave network analyser measurements and trying to work out how it applies to the measurements I took a few weeks ago with a network analyser. Because I've now read the appropriate chapter several times, it's not the most interesting book to wade through, so it's a bit of a slog.

Recently, in one of my lectures on medical imaging techniques, a lecturer was talking about taking PET scans of rats and other small mammals, and how for small mammals, they have a PET scanner and a CT scanner (aka CAT scanner) in one system. It's referred to as the PET-CT, or PET-CAT, and pronounced as 'pet-cat' regardless of which acronym is used. The lecturer spent quite some time describing how he put the rat into the PET-CAT, completely oblivious to how it sounded.

2010-10-05T11:38:00.000+10:00

Je viens de voir quelqu'un ici (je me trouve à la fac) qui bien ressemble le propriéteur de l'école où je bossais en angleterre. C'était zarbie parce que je n'arrive pas à penser pourquoi il serait dans un batiment d'ingenierie. Bien sur c'est un autre mec mais initialement ca m'etonnait.

J'ai commencé à croire que j'avais été lancé à travers un trou de ver.

Back to uni

2010-10-05T11:24:00.001+10:00

I've had a week away from uni which explains the lack of coffee-related posts, but I'm back now and I've got a latte. It's just like the previous lattes. I realised, after ordering my latte today, that it's been a while since I've had a flat white here so I should endeavour to keep that in mind when ordering future coffees.

Work today

2010-10-04T09:27:00.001+10:00

I've been called in to work today. They called me at 8.40am, to see if I could start at 9, even though they apparently knew last week that I'd be needed today but someone forgot to call me. Right now I'm sitting at the bus stop. Obviously there's not a chance in hell that I'll get there by 9, given that it's after 9 now, but I might be able to make it in by 10, if the bus isn't running late.

Coffee and waffle

2010-09-23T10:37:00.001+10:00

Today's latte was delicious and fit my theory perfectly. I was going to order a flat white, as it's been a while since my last one, but the barista knows I usually order lattes and offered me 'the usual' as I stepped up to the register. I also purchased a waffle with custard, which was also delicious.

Nie mam swój parasol

2010-09-22T13:33:00.001+10:00

J'espère qu'il ne pleut pas aujourd'hui parce que mon parapluie est resté chez moi au lieu de se mettre dans mon sac à dos. Le ciel est gris, donc je pense que je ne vais pas rester sec.