Negative Ghost Rider, the pattern is full.

Man I love that movie… I think I need to get me a copy (Top Gun, for those who don’t know what the hell I’m on about…).

Premonition

The strangest thing happened last night/this morning. Last night going to bed (can’t remember exactly when – whether I was half asleep, or even not in bed), I had some sort of semi-dream that I got up at 9:20am (about an hour and a half later than usual on a work day), had to rush to get up and get to work, but managed to get there on time, only a couple of minutes late. And you know what happened? EXACTLY that. I slept through my alarm (well, woke up then went back to sleep), and when I woke up and remembered I had work, I grabbed my clock and it was EXACTLY 9:20am. Rushed to get up, have a shower, etc (had 15 mins before I had to leave). Got some breakfast on the way to work, and turned up at 3 minutes past 10.

Is this some sort of weird future-gazing thing, or purely coincidence? My ‘dream’ was very vivid and clear about the times and stuff, and they were exactly right. Very strange indeed… I will have to ponder this more, and hopefully test it (although I don’t know how possible that is).

New Music & Dreaming

Hmm, I was looking through my blagging archives and discovered that I haven’t blagged about new CDs for quite a while now, even though I’ve accumulated quite a few more. So I just thought I’d go through and give a bit of an opinion on each! How exciting.

First up – Ben Folds’ Songs For Silverman. A truly excellent album, I listen to it all the time. Ben Folds was recommended to me by Steve, and I’m very glad of it. I even went and bought another of his albums! (as you will see later on ).

Oh wow, apparently it’s actually next on the pile I have here! So yeah, as you can see, I loved Songs For Silverman so much that I just had to go and buy Rockin’ the Suburbs! Again, a wonderful album, although quite different from the first. I don’t know what to say about it, except that I love it. Hehe.

Next comes Mr Beast by Mogwai. Before I bought this album, I had never heard anything by Mogwai, but I’ve heard a bit about them and thought I’d give it a shot! Glad I did, too. It’s a bit different to what I expected, but that said, I really had no idea what to expect. Most of it’s instrumental, and although I often like songs purely (or almost purely) because of their lyrics, Mogwai’s instrumentals are so fantastic that I don’t mind at all! Reminds me of Broken Social Scene sometimes, in that you can feel the emotions coming right out of the music, but it’s a pretty different sound. Post-rock, I believe.

I fell in love with Iron & Wine’s cover of The Postal Service’s Such Great Heights, and I guess I was kind of hoping that the Our Endless Numbered Days would live up to the expectations that song created. I was rather disappointed when I first put on the album, though. Without Ben Gibbard writing the lyrics, the tracks just don’t have that specialness and beauty about them. And the music isn’t great enough to stand by itself, sorry to say. Still, I’ll listen to it more over the coming time, and hopefully it’ll grasp a place in my heart.

I really loved The Shins’ Oh, Inverted World!, so it was natural to get their second major album, Chutes Too Narrow. I’ve avoided their latest one, because I’ve heard a bit of it and didn’t like it as much as what I’ve heard of the other two. And I think I was right to get Chutes Too Narrow – I love most of the songs on there, especially Pink Bullets and Those to Come (I’d already heard those before, though, so they probably have a bit of an unfair advantage over the others). Overall, a wonderful album.

And last, but most certainly not least – Awake Is The New Sleep by Ben Lee. What can I say? This is simply one of the most amazing albums I have ever heard! The lyrics, the music, everything. I can relate to so much of what he says. There’s a song for every occasion! (except nostalgic evenings on public transport, of course, for which there are certain songs that nothing can beat). One of my favourite albums ever, for sure.

Well, that’s it for music. I guess I’ll move on to life! Today was a really weird day, me not being really ‘with it’ at any stage. I can more or less diagnose the cause though… Last night after I went to bed, I decided I was hungry. Being around 1am, I really couldn’t be bothered making anything proper, so I had a look through the cupboard and found some pasta. So, I spent the next hour or so sitting in bed, listening to music and eating raw pasta. Not too good for the stomach, methinks… Took me a while to get to sleep, too, as my mind kept wandering. Moreso that usual, it would appear.

Then this morning I was dreaming, for the for first time I can remember in… Years, I think. I can’t remember the exact theme of the dream, but it was something along the lines of me thinking I was stuck in a rut (metaphorically) with life, and for some reason I headed off somewhere that seemed like Antarctica (although it wasn’t… most like some made up dream place). Weird. Anybody know what it could mean? Mollie suggested that it means I should get over Imogen already and go for Emilly, but I beg to differ (as made apparent by my thoughts whilst eating pasta last night…). Very weird, anyway.

But yeah, it kind of set me up to have a bit of an ‘out of it’ day. I managed to get to Uni on time to help Steve print out and hand in our Programming Assignment, then show it to Georges, out awesome tutor. Then went out for lunch with Steve and Tom, which was nice. Came home, hung around, tried to get Taylor’s Internet working (damn, I was meant to do that… oh well). Nothing terribly exciting. Went to Web System. Lecture went for about 20mins. Played Frozen Bubble with Steve. Went to WS Lab, did pretty crap on test/exam (9/15). At least I passed! Came home, cooked tea (mmm Kiev), got disgusted by Errol (as I always do when he drinks). Listened to music, wrote blag. Plan to go to bed soon!

Wow, that was a pretty long blag. Hope it wasn’t too unexciting. Oh well. Goodnight!

Dancing, Thoughts and Movies

For a while now, I’ve been considering taking up some sort of dancing. Something fun, with a partner (much better than by yourself!). Tonight I finally got around to looking it up, and I found a good-looking place called ‘Swing Patrol’ – they teach – wait for it – swing dancing. I picked swing because it looks light-hearted, quick-paced, and FUN! That and the music is cool. The only problem being – the main beginners’ class is on a Monday night, and I have class on a Monday night. They also have it on a Friday, but… It’s for all skill levels, and I think I would rather be just with beginners for the time being! See what happens, I guess!

Second on the list – the blog ‘All Men Are Liars‘, by Sam de Brito. It’s fantastic, you should all check it out. I haven’t been through all his stuff yet, but my favourite so far is probably The 80% Relationship. The majority are fantastic, though.

Last, but certainly not least, I went to see a movie (and went out for tea, etc) with Steve tonight. We saw The Lives of Others at the Dendy in Newtown. It a really great film, and provoked some very interesting thoughts indeed. One of the things that had the biggest effect on me, though, was afterwards when I mentioned it to Silke, and she game me a little bit of insight into the matter, she being from Germany and everything (the film was about East Germany before the Berlin Wall came down, with the Stasi and stuff). Really makes you think…

As for the rest of the evening, I had a really great time. We went out for tea to the Guzman y Gomez (or some such thing) Taqueria in Newtown, which was delicious due to the fact that it is Mexican (not anywhere near as good as Zaragosa’s back in Ballarat though!), then had a walk in the city, after which we watched Little Miss Sunshine, which was fantastic.

On a final note, beauty pageants are stupid (there was one in Little Miss Sunshine). Oh, and I’m confused – normally I don’t keep thinking about Imogen for a period of time as long as this… Weird. I don’t even know what it is I feel for her (romantic or platonic), which confuses me even more so. Bah!

Media bias related to Venezuela

It’s interesting to read how people with different opinions on something present their arguments – both sides make it sound like the other side it rubbish, and their own way of seeing things is obviously the right one.

Today I read a blog by Mark Shuttleworth – founder of Ubuntu linux – to do with free speech, etc. It started because of something happening in Venezuela. Now, the actual blog post didn’t interest me terribly, but one of the comments, and some subsequent research, did. If you feel like reading something interesting, read this (the comment of Mark’s blog), and then this (a BBC news article on a similar topic).

I have to say that I’ve never had reason to have anything against Hugo Chavez. Although the Western governments and news channels tend to paint him in a bad light, I’ve never heard of anything terribly bad that he’s done. After reading the comment on Mark’s blog, this hasn’t changed at all – I mean, he’s got his bad points, for sure, but it seems like he isn’t half bad. However, if I was only to read the BBC news article, I would think he is a total prick. I guess it just goes to show how biased the media can be sometimes. They always manage to have an agenda! Shame, really… Oh well.

Other news… My internet has been semi-broken for the last while, which is really annoying. We’re pretty sure it’s the modem/router, so I think I might just go and grab a new one. It’s some of the weirdest problems I’ve ever experienced. Like, last night and the night before, MSN and Skype were working, but Firefox and everything else were not. Is the modem blocking ports? Who knows… I can’t even log into it at the moment.  Oh wait… Just tried then, and I could at least found the modem, but don’t know the username and password… awesome.

Anyway, see you later!

What the hell?

I realised yet again this morning that, even though she lives in Ballarat, and I live in Sydney, and I don’t even really know her, I’m still head over heels for Imogen. Why does this keep happening?

Intuition?

I had the weirdest experience today… I was going to meet up with Emilly (a friend of mine) in Ingleburn, where she lives. But this morning, I got a really bad feeling about the whole thing. Like, intuition or something. I mean, I’ve felt stuff other times before this type of thing, but it’s always different. Like, I’ve been scared, but always excited and happy and enthusiastic. But this time… It was just plain bad! In my stomach and stuff.

Anyway, I talked to Jack and Silke about it, to see what they thought about the whole thing. Jack seemed to think I might be better off ignoring it, but Silke was adamant that I should go with my intuition, whatever it may be (although warned that she has had similar feelings before going out with friends, but had a good time). In the end, I figured I better go with whatever felt right, which was not to go (I didn’t really want to go out for Ingleburn for the first time, for one). So I rang Emilly up, and told her what I was thinking. She seemed pretty okay with it, which was good! Turns out she doesn’t want to come into the city either, though, so who knows how we are supposed to see each other! I’m sure it will happen when it’s meant to happen, though.

So I started out the rest of the day rather mopish, which wasn’t terribly delightful. After a while, I decided to get out (well, double-click on) my fix-all solution – Desiderata. Nine times out of ten when I’m feeling down about something, I can find something in there that will hit home and allow me to pick myself up and get on with life. So then I went and got James Dean movies, and watched East of Eden, which was fantastic!

Friday, I had work. Well… Sort of. I got to work at 10am, as usual, but the only other person that was there was Jimmy, the new guy, who, like me, does not have a key. So we waited around for a while until somebody came. I sat around until about 11:30am, waiting for my boss to show up to give me something to do, and eventually got bored and asked Rhys, the lead developer, if there was anything I could do for him. Turns out there was, but it was just basic stuff that didn’t require a lot of effort… Still, it was something. Eventually my boss turned up, some time after 12, but we didn’t get a heck of a lot done before lunch.

We went out to the Bavarian Bier Cafe, as it was one of the guys’ birthday. Had lunch (work’s shout), sat around for a couple of hours, talked… They got me a beer, which I drank half of before going back to Coke. Instead of going back to work after lunch, we ended up at the pub/club across the road (CBD Hotel or something), and played pool. Everyone had a few more drinks, it started to get dark, more people turned up, work day over… Hehe. Then Rhys decided he wanted to buy me drinks (alcoholic ones), so he got me a Vodka Lemon & Lime. It wasn’t terribly tasty, to be honest… Nice enough though I guess. Then he got me a Tequila Sunrise, which I can probably put the blame on for making me feel a bit sick.

Walked home, felt pretty bad. Lay down, listened to music, etc. Pretty lazy night, actually… Felt a lot better by the time I went to bed, though, and was fine this morning. So I guess that means it was the Sunrise (taste, other ingredients), not the Tequila (alcohol)? Or something… Lol. I probably won’t be drinking again in the near future, though. Taste-wise, nothing I tried beats a Coke!

Um… That’s it, I guess. Have a wonderful weekend!

Français or Español?

For the International Studies component of my degree, I study the language and culture, etc. of a certain region/country in the world. I haven’t yet made up my mind on what I want to study, and figured I had almost until the end of the year to choose. It was not to be though… Today I received an email asking me to put in my preferences by the 25th of May – just over two weeks!

I mean, I have some idea as to what I want to do, but I am not really close to a decision yet! Basically, it comes down to two choices – Chile, where they speak Spanish, or France, where they speak French (O RLY?!). I guess I’ll outline the pros and cons of each, in an attempt to clear my thoughts about the whole matter, and maybe even get a little feedback!

Chile:
Ever since I decided to do International Studies, I wanted to study/go somewhere a bit out of the way… Originally Africa, no less. UTS doesn’t happen to offer an exchange program anywhere in Africa, however it does offer a program in Chile, South America. And South America is almost as out of the way as Africa! So yeah, I like the whole out of the way and a bit underdeveloped thing. Also, there are plenty of beautiful things to see there. Oh, and it would be cheaper to go there than a good deal of other places, but that is a very minor issue. Also, Isabel Allende (probably my favourite author) is from there, and writes lots of lovely, magical stories about the place.

Spanish:
I don’t really know any Spanish, but apparently it’s pretty similar to French (which I know some of). It’s one of the most widely-spoken languages in the world, and is only getting more so. Half of South America speaks it, plus most of Central America, parts of the USA, and, of course, Spain! So they are big pluses. However, it doesn’t sounds as nice as, say, French. Not as… Romantic? Hehe.

France:
I’ll say it straight away: I am not as interested in France as I am in Chile. I mean, I’m sure it is a lovely country, but it doesn’t have the remoteness of Chile, and it considerably more commercialised, etc. That said, it does have some positives! For one, they speak French! Also, if I ever want a job overseas, or in diplomacy or something, French would be very handy. I’m pretty sure the IT industry is considerably larger in France than it is in Chile, and France is also the headquarters of some important organisations (not necessarily businesses). One final thing – winter! Proper snow, etc, which I have never experienced before! I would love to experience a European winter some time in my life .

French:
I love French. I learnt it for five years in high school, and only dropped it for Year 12 because I was sick of the teacher and the way it was being taught. It’s a very elegant and romantic language (depending on who is speaking it ), and comes out of your mouth very easily (unlike English, which can be horrible in that respect). I guess that will sound weird to anybody who hasn’t spoken it, but yeah… I really like French! Admittedly it’s not as widely spoken as Spanish, but it’s not all that far off – a good deal of Africa and a few other places speak it. It’s a lot more prominent in the IT world though, which would be good for me.

Conclusion:
In conclusion… I guess I wish Chile spoke French! I prefer Chile over France, but French over Spanish. If I was just learning the language, I would just pick French and go for it, I assume, but half of the course is not language – it’s the culture, politics, etc! On the other hand, if I was just studying culture and politics, Chile would win hands down. I guess I don’t KNOW that Spanish isn’t as cool as French, it’s just that I haven’t learnt/spoken it before! So I guess from that, I’m swinging towards Chile, considerably so. Still got a couple of weeks though!

Assignment complete!

Well, continuing on from last night’s post, I actually did end up finishing my assignment before I went to bed! Even though that ended up being about 3:30am… Oh well, I was happy with it when I read it last night – although who knows what lack of sleep might have done to my judgement at that hour of the morning.

My long night was followed by a long day – up early and off to work, and then CITP class in the evening! With a short break in between which I used to get stressed out about printing my assignment, because the printers were out of paper at Uni and it took a while to get going again! Still, CITP was as good as ever (which is pretty good!) – plenty of interesting discussion about various things. Even some things that were considerably off-topic!

I decided against doing anything productive tonight – too buggered! Also, I don’t have a heck of a lot to do at this stage… So, I watched a movie – Three To Tango, to be precise! I’d seen it once before with Elaine, and remembered it to be rather entertaining, so I figured I’d give it a shot. And boy, am I glad I did! It was an excellent movie, and had me laughing most of the way through – more so than any other movie in recent memory.

Um, that’s about it. I think I’ll go to bed, I’m hella tired. Tomorrow seems like a good day for a sleep in!

Late-night assignments

So here I am, doing an assignment late at night, because it’s due tomorrow. I’ve been thinking about why I’ve left it so late, and why even now that there is some urgency to get it done, I am procrastinating and writing a blog. I can’t decide whether I am subconsciously sabotaging my academic well-being, for some unknown reason, or maybe, I am just doing things my way!

I got through most of Year 12 doing things at my own pace – only doing things when I wanted to, or if it was due extremely soon. Both of those things motivated me. And I got through Year 12 well – not only got good marks, but loved it too! So I am wondering if it’s possible that I am just doing a similar thing now…

I mean, even though time is running short, and I have work tomorrow, I am not particularly worried about not getting the assignment in on time. I’m content just plodding along, bitching about the assignment, even though it isn’t really that bad. And I know, somehow, that everything will work out and I will do fine. Or learn a lesson from it! Weird though… Sometimes it would probably be a better idea to get things over and done with earlier so I am not up drinking mochas all night, the night before an assignment is due.

I guess that I just have to do what feels right, and to be honest, this feels right, even though I have no idea how I am going to get it done in time, plus go to work tomorrow and be at least semi-productive. I would probably just not go to work, but really needed to let them know today (yesterday), as opposed to in the morning. I guess I’ll just keep going and see what happens!