Work Uni Work Uni Work Uni Graduate Japan!

My scooter is a BIG NO-NO....apparently

2009-06-28T11:42:00.000-07:00

Although I have well and truly finished the first semester of 2009 in my BA of Anthropology, I am actually (surprisingly) rearing and ready to rip into the next study period. Just think, I keep (perhaps naively) saying to myself, only just over two years until Japan! But this isn't really true, because "drumrolllllll" I'M GOING TO JAPAN THIS NOVEMBER!!!!! Just for a little while, like 10 days, but still enough for my panties to twist into a severely mangled heap of shredded fabric (hmmmmm, wrong thing to say here?). Leonie and I and a couple we're mates with have stamped down the dates of travel (although we have to come back earlier than them due to Leonie's Masters in Business ^_^), and we head there on the 23rd of November. Although, just one thing, I HAVEN'T BOUGHT ANY TICKETS YET!!!!! Slack, I know, but I keep hoping that a super-awesome special airflight deal will appear before too long to save me from becoming quickly broke...fat chance, methinks. I'll update that matter when I come to it I suppose :S.

Meanwhile, I have only yesterday returned from Leonie and my anniversary (2 years) holiday. We had an awesome time, mostly spent in lush tropical rainforests (Mission Beach, Paluma National Park) and coastal paradisaical coastal escapes (The actual beach of Mission Beach and Dunk Island). I'll write a blog specifically about this trip soon hopefully, but I'll just say now that it was uber relaxing, but at the same time we managed to pack in alot of fun stuff. Just a preview would include mentioning waking up in a cosy hut in the rainforest, sand-crabs and Mudskippers, getting stranded on a deserted tiny island, visiting historical landmarks, eating out at some very nice restaurants, enjoying a 1,000metres-above-sealevel view of Pastoral North Queensland, and camping next to and boating in a serene and magical lake. Heapsa stuff for just a four-day trip right? ^_^

On a more dreary note, I start work again this Tuesday (tomorrow). This will be interesting; I haven't worked since the beginning of last Semester, and even more interesting because my first shift back will be an 8hour stocktake :'(. Ah well, roll with the punches m'lad, that's the ticket.

I was only worried about one exam's result this time around, but have confirmed that I passed it and then some, woot-woot. I'm going to wait until the official overall subject results are released before I enroll in next semester's lot. Unlike the subjects I just completed (and hopefully passed) i.e Japanese, an Indigenous anthropological subject, Archaeology, and Anthropology of Violence, the next subjects will most like ALL be anthropology-specific, which I suppose makes sense due to that being my major. But I don't think I get many (if any) electives from here-on-out, because of the credit-point-transfers I have from my last (failed) degree. But no looking back, this time I'm actually studying with a goal in mind; JET!!! I know, I know, I rant on about Japan alot, but I am especially full of pepp right now, having just watched about three hours worth of J-Vlogs on youtube. I have just tonight subscribed to a new JET Vlogger, NonstoptoTokyo, who has some very informational videos so far on the application process. Who better to take advice from than someone who has been accepted this year? I am looking forward to more of her vlogs, especially when she gets to Jap :-).

So yepppppp, not much else on the Om-Front, just lazing around as befits the holidays. Oh wait actually, trying to lose weight, so I'm swimming daily, and with the recent banning of my battery-powered bike on all roads except for back-roads (well, apparently it has always been illegal, but I only found out about it today from a very blunt and uninformative copper), I am back on my road-bike (bicycle in case you were wondering, not motorbike). Yay for exercise!!! I have had to neglect my fitness, what with exams and not being able to run. This is very unlike me. Time to rectify that and get rid of this useless extra 6kg. No worries mate.

Tune in next time for more boredom (yay, just like daytime tv)

Om

Yay, exams are.....just beginning :S

2009-06-06T00:19:00.000-07:00

"Hey welcome back Om ,we missed you!"
"Aw shucks, thanks everyone, you're too much".
Bit sad that I'm welcoming myself back but meh...
So it's been a whiiiiiiiiiile.
I'm into exams now for the first semester of my BA in Anthropology. I had my first ballbuster today and now I get 9 days off until my next, and in that week I have 3. Woo for exams. Only woo because I have actually done pretty well this semester and been to every single lecture and tutorial (good boyyyyyy Ommmmmmmmm, 'ooz-a-'ood-boyyyyyyyy). I haven't really let myself down on assignments either (as far as I know, I've done three but only received marks for 1 of them, it went well). Anyway, yeah good semester, lots of fun, lots of required reading, and lots of late nights. I know it's a bit early to celebrate, but it feels good to get started and get that little step closer to Japan ^_^.

Getting back into running has been a bit of a shambles, I've been back and then injured myself again, my damn feet just won't stop pronating. I seem to have mangled one of my orthotics and had to buy a new pair (EXPENSIVE), but my leg still hasn't healed yet from it's recent bout of tendonitis, and so I'm still on the bench. All study and no running makes Om an educated-but-extremely-dull boy....oh yeah, and it makes him get a small pot-belly too. Seriously, I weigh the most now that I ever have in my life!!! Car-azyyy. Hmm anyways it's ok, the fat drops off once the running starts :-D. In the meantime, Leonie likes to poke me in my newly acquired Winter-warmth and remind me of it's presence haha...hmmm.

Anyways, lots of study starting tomorrow, today's my lazy-day, I reckon I've deserved it. Lots of anime to watch, too much for one night (it's 5.30pm now), but I'll sure give it a shot haha.

Right, off to a mate's place to do just that. I'll write more soon hopefully,

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...*take breath*...mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...*faint from too many mmm's*

Fatblueman, Cyclone Ellie and heat-waves!

2009-02-01T05:13:00.000-08:00

Hi there and welcome to all, including those people who think that it may just be possible that Hogwarts may have misplaced your mature-age student entry acceptance letter, just like they misplaced mine......*ahem* I'm uber-cool right now.

First on the agenda is to tell you about some people who actually are cool. They are a band called Fatblueman (band members are John, Hiroko, Hiro, Tom, and Eishi) and they can rock some socks for sure :)!

I read about them on another guys blog, www.tofugu.com, and so went to check them out. I was actually really pleasantly surprised to find such likeable music so easily accessible. Their entire album 'Back to Winnipeg' is available for FREE (that's right, free, y'all know how much you like that word) download.

All you have to do is go to their Youtube chan nel page and find the link to download it....that easy! I highly recommend it if you have some time to chill out and just soak the music and lyrics up, very enjoyable ^_^.

I spent a whole three and a half hours traveling and shooting episode 2 of The Little Silver Box the other day, which is quite a long time to be sitting on a battery-powered bicycle in the wind and rain, with no jacket on!
I decided to show the Ross Dam spillway and the three weirs here in Townsville, seeing as how right now they are all past maximum capacity, and as a result are majorly overflowing!

Aplins Weir, one of the weirs I visited, at dusk. The low-light setting on the camera made these photos turn out quite interesting methinks

Anyways, they might be spilling over even more soon, because there is a cyclone headed in our direction, Cyclone Ellie. It is only a category 1, and is expected to reduce to a Low (which is not even classified as a cyclone) by tomorrow afternoon. But always yay for rain right?

The southern half of Australia, however, isn't doing so well weather-wise right now. They are experiencing the hottest heat-wave since Australian records began in 1855. In Melbourne last week, on the 28th, 29th and 30th, temperatures consecutively reached above 43 degrees celcius! That's 109 farenheit for those who are still in the dark ages using the imperial system lol.
But seriously, it's not good. People are actually dying from "heat stress", and that is bloody drastic. Also, unprecedented high usage of airconditioning in Melbourne eventually proved too much strain, and their power grid broke down on the night of the 30th. How crazy is this???
So my heart goes out to those who have lost anyone, and to those who are having to struggle through the heat. Of course, I'm sure that other places on Earth are constantly experiencing temperatures like these, but it's definitely a shock to see it right in our backyard.

I hate to leave blogs on unhappy notes, so I'll throw in a jollier tidbit. Yesterday I went for a hike up the Uni hills with my big bro, Fred. It was really nice, an unexpected treat was to see the long-grass covering the hillsides nearly blown flat by strong gusts which drowned out all sound and forced us to lean into it to avoid being swayed off the path. Great fun! ^_^

Oh yeah, and congratulations Leonie on your latest Distinction for Uni!!!!! ^_^ Smart cookie she is.

Oki dokeys, just waiting on that acceptance letter, man that Dumbledore is forgetful, hmmmmmmm...

Wel, look at me, all old an' stuff, La-Dee-Dah!

2009-01-29T06:19:00.001-08:00

So yeah, I'm 21 now....well, as of yesterday the 29th of January anyways. Yay woop-woop and all the rest, now go back to y'newspapers. 21 ain't such a big deal, just another year, nothing really happens, although the traditional (at least here in Australia) hype of turning 21 is considered the norm. Trust me, apart from the moment when I woke up yesterday and said to myself "hey, wow, I'm old now" (which makes no sense at all, I mean, I was only 8 hours older than when I'd gone to sleep), there was not much excitement, no party lights in my head, no great, ecstatic feeling. Just another birthday, kinda fun to have some extra attention, but otherwise....nup.

I went for a run late in the morning, although it felt early because of all the rain. I ran up into the hills behind uni, which was cool, I haven't run up there since before my last injury, about one and a half years ago. I decided as I was running that I'm going to have to do a video of going up there, it's very scenic to say the least.

Oh yeah, and I worked five hours today, so that was fun. I tried to get away with no-one at work knowing it was my b'day until one particular workmate (who knew, oh yeah, they knew) came in and not only spilt the beans to the others, but also to the customers via the P.A system haha, and I only had an hour to go too, so close!

From there, Leonie took me straight to my 'surprise' party (three people attending had already told me about it), which was really nice. I had a great time, family and some friends, and some awesome presents. One thing which bothered me was that I kept calling everyone 'dude', which is kinda unlike me.....who says dude anyway?! But anyway, I digress. Nick, my mate, got me some excellent books, one on the subject of life and linguistics in the Amazonian jungle, one on international Couch-Surfing (a cheap and very interesting way to travel as a tourist), and, of course, "Learning Japanese for Dummies", a 3 cd set with booklet supplement. I found these three presents extremely relevant to me, so Kudos Nick! ^_^ Thanks....dude! (argh, see? see? annoying!).
Mike, my big sis's fiancee, got me a golf simulation green (a long strip of artificial green with hole, slope and hazards included), and a really flash putter :) Thanks Mike!

Me demonstrating how NOT to hold a putter

Flo, my big sister, made me (upon request) a HUGE chocolate multi-layered cake, full of chocolate mousse, cream, chocolate icing, and topped with cherries :D:D:D Thanks Floooooooooo!

Flo's cake, YUMMMMMMM

Mum, Annie and Greg put on this massive, fabulous dinner which I just couldn't do justice (sorry guys), and gave me an egg-cooker-thingy, which is cool cos the hens are now laying 3-4 eggs each day, yummmmmmm fresh eggs! Mum also made me a cake, and it had my name on the top, written in whole almonds, yum almonds! Thanks Mum :):):):):)!

Mum's cake, SWEEEEET

Campo gave me a fishing magazine and an issue of the "Gold Mining Journal", which is good, because, um, fishing and mining gold are my favourite pastimes? Haha, but yeah I can appreciate the effort :) and every party has to have that guy who will inevitably, at some point, come up to you and say through giggles "hey, pull my finger" and guess what, I always pull it (that's what he said), just to see if something different happens this time :S. Ta muchly Campo!

both cakes, AWESOOOME

Dad couldn't make the dinner, but he gave me an electric-powered frypan and mini-electric frypan, which is cool because I have been wanting one of them for ages (our stovetop doesn't work except for one ring, and the oven doesn't work either lol). He is also going to give me something that he promised me about12 years ago. Not gonna tell you what it is, but when he gives it to me, I'll take a pic and post it on here k? ^_^
Oh yeah, and Mike, Flo, Greg and Mum, and maybe Fred too, I'm not sure because it was a surprise, made me a '21st' slideshow. ^_^ Feels nice to be treated specially to something like that, even though some of the pics were embarrassing shots of me hahahahahahahaha. Thanks so much everyone :)!
And of course Leonie was there too, looking pretty as a picture and all made up. She got me a novelty-sized card in the sahpe of a key which everyone at the dinner signed, which was uber-cool and nice of them (and of course nice of Leonie for getting it!). She also got me a groceries voucher WOOOOOOO FREE GROCERIES!!! I love practical gifts! Alot haha! :) thanks for making my day extra cool-tastic Leonie! ^_^

In other, I suppose less momentous news, today I found ANOTHER double-yolker in the egg batch. A double yolker, as it's name suggests, is ONE egg with TWO yolks in it. Fred took a video of me cracking it open, but I'm not gonna put a vid of that on youtube, unless it's part of a bigger vlog about something else as well haha.

Also in todays headlines, I enrolled in my fourth subject for this coming semester, after much umming and ahhhhing over which one to choose. I have now chosen Foundation Japanese 1, and introductory Archeology subject, an indiginous Australian anthropological subject, and then one I enrolled in today is called Anthropology of Violence. All sound at least passable, and some sound great fun :) so hurry up uni, get here quick, I'm a-wastin time here! What's the name of my Blog? That gives you some idea of what I mean.

So ja, that was my 21st birthday, boring to some it may sound, but just how I wanted it to be ^_^. Thanks to all those involved in the planning of the dinner, and thanks to anyone who wished me a happy birthday.

My next Youtube vid will be about the hills behind the uni, as I have until Tuesday off work and will be bored stiff haha.

Until next time, remember to keep an eye on your towel ok? :)

world's longest absence?

2009-01-15T06:17:00.000-08:00

Been about a squillion years since I blogged. I've been bu.....sy.........ok fine! I'm just lazy of late...happy?!?! But here's a catchup as long as there are many filler episodes of Naruto (lol, lmao, rofl-copters :P OM YOU NERD).

Work hours slumped after Christmas and over new years for most of the crew at work. The higher-ups in the company decided to dole out enough money in the budget to cover the managers and a couple of ten year olds on $2/hour, so mostly everyone else got kicked out of the loop. But things have definitely started picking up again, Today I finished my fourth 8hour shift in a row, and so completing my maximum 30hours for the week(7.5hours times four=30hours, because we have a half hour unpaid break each shift that is longer than five hours)(it sucks that we casuals are only allowed a maximum of 30hours a week, else I'd be begging for a 50-60 hour week....I like minimum wage holiday money lol). All of this week myself and a little CCcrew ("CC" standing for Crazy Clarkes...just trying to make my job sound more street-wise and hip) have been moving shelf frames and assorted fittings from the back of the store to the front of the store, i.e. taking all the shite off the shelves in the gardening aisle and taking the shelves down to the front, and then loading all the personal care/beauty aisle stuff onto those shelves (make sense? yeah, me neither :S). This is tedious and made even more unenjoyable by our boss's boss, who makes an appearance once a day to tell us what we have done wrong, and what to do next. Then he comes again the next day and tells us to change the layout all over again (which was what he'd wanted the day before), and also what to do next. This has happened every single day for the last four days, which means we are pretty much still at square one, whilst he refuses to stay in the store and oversee the work.
But I haven't openly complained, and I mean, it's not anyone's fault in particular except maybe the really higher up management's for not spreading regional managers on thickly enough. Ours is in charge of not only his own store, but also about six others, which are not just in Townsville, but in several others as well (one is even out of Queensland, in Northern Territory (different to a state for those who didn't know, but I honestly don't know the difference)). So it's not his fault that he has little/no time to oversee our work on re-laying our store when he has to take care of many others as well. And it's not our direct managers' fault, because they are giving us orders the best they can with what the regional manager has told them (very little, and very open to varied interpretation). And it's not our fault, because our job description is not to show ingenuity or provide management input, and is really just to carry out simple orders given to us in black and white (although sometimes there are many shades of grey in there lol), such as "move shelf from here to there".....simple ey?
In other words, Everyone just tries to do their job, and everyone gets no actual work done in an efficient manner. But hey, I'm not complaaaaiiiining :P hehe.

On the home front, my chickens have, yes that's right, STARTED LAYING EGGS! o_o.....well, two of them have anyways. But that's still 14 eggs a week, and when they all start laying, that'll be 35 eggs a week, most of which I will be selling to a couple of people who've already expressed interest (my dad and my gf's parents lol). This probably won't make me any profit, but will pay for their feed, which is great, cos it ain't cheap :(.

It has been raining frogs and locusts here for the last week, as we have been catching the outer edges of a former cyclone (now just a Low), which was situated up in far northern Queensland. This has forced me onto the bus to get to work, which makes me feel lazy :'(. But it's drying up now, so all good.

All good, except that the rain has ruined our camping plans for this weekend. We booked our campsite up at Lake Paluma ( which is also Townsville's backup water source) about a month and a half ago, and I have been looking forward to it as it is my only REAL holiday planned these couple of months which is away from everything like uni and work and home lol. But to get to the lake, you must go first go about 40minutes north on the Townsville-Cairns highway, then proceed inland up an 18km mountain range (the exotic and wonderfully beautiful Paluma rainforest), then along an 11km dirt/gravel road. Seeing as it has been raining up in Paluma even harder than it has been here, and seeing as the dirt road only needs a moderate rainshower to transform it into a complete mud-mash, it is now closed until further notice. Damn bugger shit!!!!!! I am close to being minorly depressed about this turn of events. The last four days of being told to do, re-do, and then re-re-do the same task at work has really emphasized how much I need to get away right now, and Paluma was it. And now Paluma, well, isn't it.
Leonie has organised a backup camping place near Mission Beach (a holiday area up north on the coast near Tully), which is cool, but just not the same. I hate being fussy about this, but it just sucks is all.

My last blog entry was about building the Little Silver Box, a wooden box that I've covered with tinfoil and strapped to my bike handlebars. It is my idea for a mini-series on Youtube about my favourite rides around town, and some info on where I live. Since then, I've posted one and a half episodes of "the adventures of the Little Silver Box", one being an intro to the box, and the half episode is of a ride up Castle Hill, a local landmark which is extremely popular to climb for people interested in fitness/social walking/cycling/running/sight-seeing. I don't really like how the first episode is turning out, as the box shakes too much regardless of padding to hear my voice properly, and makes the screen jitter about constantly. But if anyone's interested in seeing the vids, here they are:

If you can't see the vids above, then just go to www.youtube.com, then search for "little silver box" for the episodes, or "ensortion" for my channel :).

I have also made a vlog entry :O shock horror! It is really just a response to another youtuber's video, agreeing with him that the movie 'Amadeus' is AWESOME (it's my alltime favourite movie :D).

I watched 'Hotrod' tonight. It made me laugh soooooooooooooo hard, man I love that movie ^_^

Anyways, I'll try to write more regularly from now on, so my posts aren't ridiculously long, just like my appendages....what! I'm talking about my long arms and legs ;)

^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^

Woo! for too much time on one's hands :-D

2008-12-29T08:18:00.000-08:00

Well, it cost me fifty bucks of material, plus about, ohhh, let's say 7 hours of work (keeping in mind I am quite a slow person at, well, most things lol), but I have succeeded in making a case to put my camera in for rides. It attaches to my handlebars :) I had no real idea what it would turn out like, and it's definitely not a pro job, but.....it's MY not-pro job YAYYYYYYY! (I'm gonna read this tomorrow and wonder where I pulled it all from, but let's remember that I have just spent 7 hours not eating or drinking, just thinking about a little box) (that's what he said ;) ).

I'll post pics of it asap k?

I really want to test it out, but it's raining outside :( plus, you know, it's 2.30 in the morning and I'd get some weird looks from my creepy neighbours who stay awake all hours lol (seriously, they really do seem to be awake at ALL hours).

Aside from that little project, today Leonie and I made sushi for Flo's birthday present. I got Flo about a kilo and a half of chocolate for christmas, so I thought something healthy would be a nice change......ok OK who am I kidding, it was all Leonie's idea.
The cucumber we used in the sushi tasted like acid would taste if it was really bad acid, so I had to rush down to the shops to get some more, because we were on a deadline (what with Leonie needing to get to work, and me needing to fulfill my nerdy pursuit of a camera-box strapped to a bike).

Anyhoo, work tomorrow, 1-6pm. Should be a dazzler, like all the others :P...

Om, I tube YOU!

2008-12-27T22:08:00.000-08:00

I've managed to put another youtube vid up. This one is special; my first youtube appearance where I consciously talk to the camera. I did a short intro to the vid (which is of Leonie teaching me how to make sushi), and kinda screwed it up. I went off on tangents about Naruto and Harry Potter, and kept saying "really great". It felt exactly like speaking in front of a crowd does.....daunting lol. Hopefully I'll get used to it :).

One of the coolest things about making sushi was being able to understand the hiragana on the front of the packet of dried seaweed :) it feels like I've accomplished something at least a little productive in this largely wasted university holidays lol.

1: su 2: shi 3: no 4: ri
I have no idea what the thing above 'su' is though, perhaps someone could enlighten me?

When editing it in Moviemaker in Windows Vista (on Leonie's new laptop) the video wouldn't encode properly to start with. It kept encoding it so that a green bar filled the bottom half of the screen. I was confused as all heck, so googled "Windows Vista movie maker green bar" and found that it is a very common problem on Vista. Having found instructions on how to change a setting in the start menu, I finally encoded the movie and uploaded it (which took ages also, not sure why hmmmmm). But anyways.....woo! Haha.

Other than doing video stuff, I have been, well, just bumming around really. The chickens still haven't layed yet :( but I'll wait for another couple of weeks before I really start worrying about that.

Something interesting happened yesterday. I was in the middle of a bicycle ride with Tony (best mate), and we were heading down Laverack Barracks Road (as the name suggests, there is an army base that runs right along the length of it, about a 2-3km stretch of straight, smooth road, great for cycling). In the distance I could see a police car on the side of the road, and as I got closer I could see two policemen standing next to it pointing spped-guns at us lol. As I approached them I shouted "how fast am I going?", to which one of them shouted back "50km/h"...
Now this was all cool, except that my speedo said that I was only traveling 46km/h.... :S
This either means that my speedo is calibrated incorrectly (which I don't mind so much about) or the policemen's guns were wrong (I highly doubt this), which entertains the idea of false speeding tickets lol.

That same day I worked a five hour shift, followed by two hours of squash (I won two of the three matches I played against Fred and Campo), a small run, and then a barbecue at Leonies house. Man I love their FOOD! lol It's so good. There were these spicy prawn kebabs, yummmmm!!!!! steaks cooked three different ways, tandoori chicken, a weird but cool salad (the ingredients included feta cheese, pine nuts, and WATERMELON chunks) were just some of the things on the menu. And awesome desserts that I can't spell the names of (Indian lol). Yep, definitely an excellent dinner :-D.

Tony and I were supposed to have a run this afternoon, but he is sick with a flu-type thing, so I will go it alone I suppose. Oh yeah, followed by a walk up Castle Hill.
Speaking of Castle Hill, it is one of the foremost projects for filming as soon as I can work out how to strap the camera to my bike :) maybe a tailor-made job is required hmmmm...

Shift key plus semicolon, plus shift key plus 0 key = :)

2008-12-25T06:40:00.000-08:00

Whoa, I am glad Christmas is over again! This may seem a bit weird, but hear me out.
The whole point of Christmas as far as I can see is

a) commercial sales profit

b) religion (note that I put this as the second aim of modern Christmas)

c) Family

a) was ruined for me, because I spent the lead-up to today working in retail, selling the stuff that you all bought for "low low prices", and spent the rest of the time stressing about what to get everyone.
b) was never really in the picture for me to begin with.
And c) was messed up this year because Mum, my li'l sis, and Mum's partner are away in New Zealand. Dad lives 60km out of Town and we didn't drive out to see him this Christmas (he comes into town frequently, but we usually go and see him on chrissy day). and the remaining three of us (me, my big bro Fred and big sis Flo) tried to hang out today but let's just say it didn't really work out.

So Christmas = Bust.

I know that's fairly negative, but I'm just saying that it wasn't such a good christmas when compared to some of my previous years.
Although in saying that, I did go around to Leonie's place to have lunch with her parents and Grandmother, and that was actually pretty nice :). They can cook I tell ya what! I love Leonie's family's cooking.
And the other good bit about today was the cleaning I got done around the house. I say I did, but it was actually Leonie and I who toiled on this momentous holiday. It's interesting, but while in my back yard this arvo, I heard several next door neighbours mowing their lawn, so it mustn't have been just me doing some overtime labour.

I have tomorrow off thank goodness, time for more cleaning, a bit in the house and alot in the yard. I've been slack to say the least with the chores.

Fred and I have surpassed our download limit for the monthly internet. Bugger. It won't get reset until the 6th of next month :'(. Now I can't watch Youtube videos without having to wait about fifteen minutes for them to buffer... wahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....haahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

On the camera front, I've finally been able to pay for my Samsung s1050 (Paypal is such a pain with it's waiting periods), but the guy I bought it off (in the U.K) is on holiday until the 5th of January, so I probably won't have it until mid to late next month... frowney face!

And to top it all off, I have lent my 500gb external hard-drive to a chick from work so she can get mass amounts of my anime off of it. So now I don't even have anime to comfort me in my late-night boredom. I have resorted to something I used to do years ago; Listen to audiobooks while I play solitaire :S sound nerdy/ultra boring? Well, it is both those things lol, but meh.

Tomorrow, Leonie is taking us to the Boxing Day shop sales. I don't know about anywhere else (other countries I mean) but here in Aus, Boxing Day is when everything goes on sale, when shops mark down their stock, sometimes to a ridiculous extent.
I saw on the news today that in America, due to recession, shops had their lowest pre-christmas sales in fifty years this year. Lol the way the reporter was casting this story made it sounds like the end of the Earth. "Code red, code red, Americans can not, I repeat CANNOT afford as many christmas presents as they could before".....yep, I'm a nasty Pastie for making fun of them, but they make fun of the rest of the world so it's a taste of Americas own medicine (in saying "they" I'm making some extreme generalisations, most likely wrongly so, I know many nice and uncrazy Americans, and at the same time know many not-nice and very crazy Australians, so yeah it all evens out).

Meh, I'm tired, time for some Terry Pratchett Audiobook plus solitaire, then bed.

Oh yeah, P.S: if any of you non-existant readers out there are interested in what the life of an assistant Language Teacher in Japan is like, go to www.jasoninjapan.blogspot.com or www.joshuazimmerman.com/blog for some insight. Both bloggers write descriptively and are very entertaining in their recounts of their daily activities over there in Jap :)

ouchhhhhhhhh

2008-12-21T00:20:00.000-08:00

This morning was a pain in the butt-side! For a start, I haven't had a day off work in what seems forever. The fact that today is a Sunday, and therefore a better-payed shift, did however make me a little more enthusiastic.
My alarm goes off, in it's almost subtle yet indistinguishable tone.
"Right, up we get".
...
"Why haven't we moved? Are we lazy?"
..."arghhhhhhhh my back is screaming at me!!!!!"
I literally had to half roll, half crawl out of bed. My lower lumbar area was hurting, it was ouchies, IT WAS ABSOLUTELY CANING! (is caning an Australian colloquialism? it means really, REALLY, hurting).
Riding to work was no fun at all, although the air was crisp and the scenery lush and vibrant-looking due to an early-morning rain-shower. I ride a Cinelli Unica road bike (bicycle that is, not motorbike). This means that even when I don't ride with my hands on the "hoods" or on the "drops" (hoods are just above the brakes/gears, and drops are the lower bits of the handlebars, the "horns" if you will), my body is about halway to jacknifing whilst riding. Needless to say, this wasn't improving my lumbar situation. By the time I arrived to work, I was ready to turn right around and head straight for home, with the words "ice pack, heat pack, bed" being the prevalent keywords swimming in my consciousness. But, being the good worker that I [sometimes] am, I narrowed my eyes, stared down a huge pile of stock to be shelved, and dove into the shift. I worked willingly, ignoring the ever-increasing pain. I toiled tirelessly, shunning the nervous system signals coming from my stomach reminding me ever so kindly "ah, did you forget something? Breakfast?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?". I laboured lovingly, assuring myself that I didn't have food poisoning, albeit the cramping sensations coming from my stomach and bowels tried to convince me otherwise.........
And then I started work.

Seriously, it was the worst shift EVER! Until, that is, Leonie bought me some lunch halfway through, and I borrowed a buck off her to buy some cheap and nasty cola, the caffeine in which pepped me up to no end :). Thanks Leonie!

After work (did I mention our basement/loading dock smells like raw sewage right now? I think I know what the culprit is.....you guessed it, probably raw sewage leaking from a pipe), Leonie and I went to Stable on the Strand, which is like a mini-mini festival held every year at the Strand (beach), in Strand Park (imaginative names right?).
It was pretty fun. The whole place was decked out pavillion-style with fence borders painted to look like stone walls. Once we stepped through the gates, it was out of Townsville, and into little Bethlehem. Heaps of people were in character for the people of the time of Jesus' Christ's [supposed] birth. Centurians and other Roman soldiers, beggars, carpenters, weavers, seamstresses, maintenance boys scrubbing "walls", potters, people filling out the Roman census, e.t.c.

Leonie's friend Bianca was in a montage-style play depicting all the, I suppose, important biblical events leading up to the Jesus Christ bit (Adam & Eve, Noah's Ark, Joseph, yadda yadda yadda). It was made more entertaining by "Satan", an actor in a smart red shirt and black vest. He constantly roamed the stage and audience, yelling random shite and "cursing" people or something lol. It was pretty funny, and he pulled it off well through sheer confidence and loudness haha. I got most of it on video, but I'll talk about that later.
After checking out the food stalls, more biblical stuff, a glance at the petting zoo (cute lambies mawwwwwww), and the rock concert happening on the beachfront (some pretty nice heavy rock takes on classic christmas carols lol), Leonie and I stumbled upon another stage-area away from the others. To be honest, I didn't have any part in finding it. All I heard was a squeal of pleasure from Leonie, and saw her running towards the area. It turned out that some hiphop dancers (from out of town I reckon) were performing. I ran to the center of the crowd and whipped out the camera in my pocket and started recording. This was made hard by the fact that Leonie kept shaking me and yelling "aw man! This is so COOL!" lol, funny girl.

Now, some big newssssssss. I have finally, after a year or so, put another Youtube video up on my account (shock amazement!). It is the one I've just been talking about, the hiphop dancing one :). I've done some basic editing (credits, fade-in/out) and uploaded it just now. Hot off the press!

If anyone ever actually reads this blog (signs pointing to noooooooooo) chack out my youtube channel. My avatar name is "ensortion" ^_^

Anyhoooo, signing out now.
Peace to all and to all a goodnight, except insomniacs, for whom that old saying holds little or no meaning :P.

2nd-hand Samsung S1050 ^_^

2008-12-18T08:32:00.000-08:00

I just bought a second-hand Samsung S1050 off of Ebay. Woot-woot!

Hopefully this means that soon I'll be posting some of my own pics, not others, and maybe even some youtube vids (:O shock horror!).

Like I mentioned in my last post, it is kind of like, my Christmas gift to myself :) I've been considerably more tight-arsed with my money this year than previously. I deserve a treat :) right? Right? (needing justification of purchase here lol!).

I watched Paprika tonight. Very messed up, yet awesome because of it's plotline, imaginative themes, moral questions (are dreams better left alone, or should they be analysed until they all merge into one collective dream?) and impressive animation effects (duh! it's anime, of course it's going to be cool). I've downloaded the main theme song "The Girl in Byakkoya - White Tiger Field" by artist Susumu Hirasawa. Very flowing and lovely. Good for dancing alone to in my house lol where no-one can see my lame moooooooves.

'Night

Christmas = spending :(

2008-12-16T07:33:00.000-08:00

Well, let me start out this post by saying how great it is to sleep in! I love it, soooooooooo much. Waking up to the rustling of sheets from rolling over is just so much better than jerking awake to the screeching of my alarm. Yep, that's right, I haven't had to get up before midday since Saturday (it's been three sleep-ins in a row then), and tomorrow is another :D.

I bought my li'l sister's chrissie present the other day. I got her things to take on her holiday trip to New Zealand with Mum and her dad. I miss you Mum :'(.

On the topic of christmas presents, HOW FREAKIN HARD IS IT TO FIND A SUITABLE PRESENT FOR EVERYONE?!?!?!?!?! I have finally figured out what to get my bro Fred, Leonie's is in the bag, my little brothers has been decided, Mums and Annies (li'l sis) have been given already (they left yesterday), but I still don't know what to get: my Dad, Stepmother, big sis Flo, friends Tony and Campo, the list goes on...
The ideas that keep popping up in my head are all quite expensive :(... and I only have until next Thursday @_@!!!!!

My christmas present to myself (I reckon I've been good) is a new digital camera. I haven't owned one for about four years, and I'm ready to photograph anything in sight! hehe...
No, but really, I was thinking about possibly strapping it to my bike and taking it on rides with me up Mount Stuart/Castle Hill/Hervey's Range e.t.c. (video footage). Plus it'll be good for uni stuff like Anime Club (yep, I'm a MASSIVE nerd), get-togethers and other whatnots.
Anyhooooooooo, the point of this little rant is that cameras are expensive! That's why I'm getting my dad to search for one similar to his (Samsung s1050) because I like it, and he'll probably be able to get it cheap online :). And maybe want to go halves in it for my christmas present?????? :P who knows.

Also, on the topic of expenses, I took my Toshiba Portege tablet laptop into the repair shop today :(. I have tried and tried to get it working for ages, but when it comes down to it, I just don't know shite about anything computer-related...now it's going to cost me minimum $250 for something that I should, by rights, be able to fix myself.

So by my estimation, Christmas this year is gonna cost, well, a hellavalot!
Plus, my flatmate is moving out soon, and it'll just be Fred and I living here, so expenses will shoot up there too. Woo for taxes and rent O_o

Peace outttttttttttttttttt

Caleb's pictures of beautiful Rural Japan

2008-12-14T07:03:00.000-08:00

Aha! Finally the pictures I promised.

These were all taken by Caleb House, a JET participant in his first year of ALT (Assistance Language Teacher). They are are only a fraction of the pics he has, but they pretty much capture the essence of them. He is stationed in the Kyoto prefecture, close to Osaka. But, as you can plainly see, not so close that he is short of beautiful landscapes of bamboo and deciduous forests :) (especially beautiful in these pictures due to Autumn).

Thank you, Caleb, for giving me permission to share your pictures.

If anyone would like to see any more of this Japan area, go to www.youtube.com and channel search for 'extravpenguin' to reach Caleb's profile. His video footage is just as thorough and well presented as his photography.

These pics all make me want to go rural when going to Japan....and you?

The pictures above and below are of Green tea fields. Yum! Green tea! :) Love the symmetry of the perfect lines.

I remain a semi-functioning part of society :)

2008-12-14T06:32:00.000-08:00

Wootwoot, I got a credit for BM1062. Kinda/very/muchly/ridiculously relieved! :)

I HATE FACEBOOK!

2008-12-14T04:09:00.000-08:00

Ok well, this was the post in which I intended to upload the pictures of Nara, Japan that I mentioned a couple of posts ago. Caleb (the photographer and JET participant) quickly gave me the go ahead, thanks Caleb! :)
Unfortunately, Facebook is being extremely difficult....meaning, it's shat itself! Just doesn't load on my computer :'( sooooooooo yeah... will post them asap.

Only one hour and 16 minutes until my uni results come online :S Not actually sure how I went. Last semester I was pleasantly surprised, however this time I'm quite sure I didn't do quite so crash hot. I was only doing one subject this semester; Anatomy and Physiology 2 (BM1062), where the anatomy was simpler than last time, yet the physiology harder :(. I didn't go to enough lectures, and wasn't as into the study as I should've been. But yeeaaahh, we'll see.

Went bowling twice today, once in the morning with Fred, Campo and Annie, and also tonight with Fred, Leonie and Claire :). Fred beat me both times and one game (one of tonights) I came last out of everyone *frowney face*, but it was still great to get out of the house :).

It was weird this arvo. As I let the chickens back into their pen, a few sparse raindrops began to fall. The humidity (which had been really stifling for most of today) dropped considerably. Minutes later, lightning appeared on the horizon. The wind picked up from zero to 100 in about ten seconds, and I could actually hear the rainstorm coming closer until it was right on top of us :S it was quite amazing to notice all of this happening in a matter of minutes. Fred said that I witnessed a "front".

Had a driving lesson with Flo today, went well I suppose. I just can't really get excited about driving. I think if I'd have done my lessons three years earlier, then I would feel a part of the hype, but now it just seems an annoying necessity to get a license. I live in a relatively small city (in Australia it's classed as a city, anywhere else it would be classed as smaller). I can ride pretty much anywhere I need to go in 40min maximum, uni and work are close, and anytime I really can't/don't want to ride, I can bus it, or beg Leonie for a lift lol. But I think having to renew my Learner's license for a fourth time this coming January will be somewhat tired-feeling and a little drawn out lol...

Work tomorrow isn't until 6.30pm(-9.30pm) so It will be sleep-in city in the morning :)

Ok Facebook just started working again, so hopefully I will put up the pictures soon :)

Haha I'm so fogetful. I'd lose my own head if it .....wasn't.....Damn I forget the rest of the saying :P

2008-12-12T06:25:00.000-08:00

In my previous entry, I completely forgot to mention probably the only productive part of my day off (and was actually the reason I was writing a blog entry in the first place).

In my newfound quest to fill some of my free time with learning Japanese (maybe it'll give me a headstart when uni begins), I have printed out five identical charts of Hiragana and stuck them up around the house (well, I've only put two of them up, one in the bedroom and one on the toilet door lol) to start memorising them. Of course, to a complete Gaijin (outsider) like me, these Japanese alphabet components are completely unfamiliar, and I was getting nowhere fast like a hamster in a wheel.
And then the idea kinda just crept up on me while I was pottering around the house. There are five basic vowel sounds to learn on this chart; a (pronounced "ah"), i ("ee"), u ("ooh"), e ("ai" sound from the word "wait"), and o (sort of sounds like the british pronunciation of the word "awe"). As I kept repeating these out loud (I was alone in the house, so no weird looks from others), The sounds just seemed to fall into the same rythm as the kids song "Bingo". You know the one, "there was a farmer had a dog, and Bingo was his name-oh...B. I. N-G-O e.t.c).

So this is my adapted version of that song, with Hiragana replacing the chorus (keeping in mind it doesn't really work for the vowels when mixed with the "y", "w" and "n" sounds, because they don't have five sounds :S):

Om's Hiragana Learning Song (sung to the Tune of "Bingo")

Chorus
There are 46 Hiragana to know,
and here's the first three lines-oh:

First verse
a . i . u-e-o
ka . ki . ku-ke-ko
sa . shi . su-se-so
and Hiragana is its name-oh!

Chorus
There are 46 Hiragana to know,
and here's the next three lines-oh:

Second verse
ta . chi . tsu-te-to
na . ni . nu-ne-no
ha . hi . fu-he-ho
and Hiragana is it's name-oh!

Chorus
There are 46 Hiragana to know,
and here's the next three lines-oh:

third verse
ma . mi . mu-me-mo
ya . blank . yu-blank-yo
ra . ri . ru-re-ro
and Hiragana is it's name-oh!

Chorus
There are 46 Hiragana to know,
and here's the last two lines-oh:

fourth verse
wa . blank . blank-blank-wo
n. there's . no-more-to-go
you've . put . on-a-good-show
and Hiragana is it's name-oh!

Yep, I know what you're thinking, kinda stupid right? Well, seems to work for me :P lol...

a . i . u - e - o and its name is Hiragaaaana

2008-12-12T05:11:00.000-08:00

Today I was woken by my alarm. This sucked because today is my day off, and my alarm ringtone is not my friend and definitely not invited to my birthday party :(. But it wasn't Fred's day off, he had work at 9am, so I had set it to 8.25am. After waking him, he asked me to put it on snooze, to get an extra ten minutes of ZZZ's. In my half asleep daze, I mustn't have pressed snooze, and instead pressed the 'off' button (can you blame me? I want to hear that blasted ringtone as little as possible). Next thing I knew, Fred was saying "Nice one man, I'm late".
"Mmmmmble-wmmble-sorry" I articulately replied.
Sorry Fred :(.
Eventually, around 11.30am, I woke up, again in a half asleep daze, to let the chickens out (yep, I have five chickens, hopefully they will be laying in the next week to week and a half) and make sure they had water (it's getting hot and humid around these parts recently, as is normal during a Townsville christmas). Upon reaching the back yard (best way to describe my walking style in the morning is a very, VERY, drunken-like stagger), I found that Fred had already let them out. Thanks Fred :). I chucked some growing mash on the ground (supposed to go in their feeder but hey, that was a whole fifteen metres away), uttered a croaky "Chick-chick-chick" and mooched back inside with the intention of spending the rest of my ever-so productive morning in an unconscious state. My computer, however, had it's magnetic field activated, and so I instead slumped in front of it and proceeded to waste the next four hours by looking up various things on youtube (mostly JET-related), and replying to an email from a JET (you've gotta understand, I'm in complete awe of these guys who have made it to Japan in this competitive programme). I think, however, that I may have asked too many question while doing so, and hope that I don't appear too stalkerish haha just a little is all. I just want to know everything about Japan from a first-hand perspective, but I'm making do by watching the video-logs (vlogs) of many JETs instead. Kinda like a 20-pack-a-day smoker who can't afford his own cigarettes, and has to eke out his addiction on others' second-hand smoke. In saying this, some of the footage these guys deliver on youtube is quite fantastic (in my eyes) and seems to capture their life over there quite honestly. For example, The guy who I was emailing today has taken this massive, and I mean massive, collection of photographs of the countryside around where he is situated (a rural area of the Kyoto prefecture), and I have spent the better part of this afternoon trawling through them, and being blown away by each and every one. It is Autumn over there, and the leaves on so many trees are brilliant shades of red, orange, rorange, and or-red (last two are made up colours, but there are too many shades for names). I will email him and see if I can post some of his pics in my next entry.

Campo came over around 4pm, and we watched a few episodes of 'The Office' season five while chowing down on some cold, juicy, delicious Nashi-pears (see last entry), green tea, and very yucky low-grade, Home-Brand chocolate ("Homebrand" is one of the generic brands in Australian supermarkets, along with "Black&Gold", and there used to be one called "No Frills" but I haven't seen it in ages :S). After repeatedly swearing off this gross chocolate for a whole ten minutes before breaking off another square, with a recurrant result, Fred arrived home. We then went over to Bicentannial Park near my Mum's place, and kicked a soccer ball around in the twilight until it bcame too dark to see.

After quickly visiting PJ, who is just recently arrived home from Uni in Brisbane for his holidays, We drove back to Campo's place. Fred and I caught a taxi from there to home (from there Fred was to go to Claire's 21st Bday party), and wouldn't you know it, the taxi driver turned out to be one of our neighbours haha. He spent the trip talking about his home-security setup, including surveillance cameras which have a backup memory up to 28 days, and are trained to see all around his house, and also into the street (which includes the roundabout on the corner of Forest Ave. and Wattle Street. This is a little scary because a couple of months ago a street sign on this roundabout was knocked down by one of the many hoons that live in our neighbourhood. I was building my chicken pen at this time, and just so happened to need a cross-beam, so went and picked the completely snapped (and therefore, I assume, unusable in the future) signpost off the road. Little did I know at the time, but our taxi driver probably recorded this and kept it for later use. Luckily, I was wearing a clothes that hid my face lol).

Anyway, that's been my day off. To be honest, it was a bit of a let-down. I actually missed work :S. Wrong, very wrong! Sitting on my arse used to be so easy during uni semester, but I seem to have acquired a taste for work. hmmmmmmmm...

I hope to have those pics posted up soon, pending the photographer's decision :).

Happy days

Castle Hill and Nashi Pears :D

2008-12-11T05:40:00.000-08:00

Well, had a major chillout in the aircon all day after work. In the evening went for a run up Castle Hill's goat-track (although I believe the official name is the Cutheringa track). I couldn't even run all the way up the stairs at the end (someone told me once that there are like 300steps, which isn't too bad except that they're mostly made out of local granite, and come in heights varying from 30cm to about 90cm, taxing on the legs :S), which is an issue for me, seeing as I was hardcore into that hill only a year ago :(....ah well, that's what numerous running injuries, uni and work do to your fitness haha...

After the Hill (Thanks Leonie for taking Fred and I :)), Fred and I did our fortnightly groceries shopping. Now, this is usually a load of fun and brillo-wow feelings for me (and why not? I'm filling up my empty house with fooooooooooood lol). But as I watched the price go up and up and up while the guy at the register beeped our stuff through, I started to wonder "hmmmmm, did we buy something we don't usually get? Or did we just get more of it? *ponder*"...And I still can't answer that.
Anyway, I digress. Now I have Nashi pears!!!!!!!!! Not only do I looooooooooove Nashi fruit for it's taste, texture, crispness when you bite into it, and juiciness, but it's also always a scream watching the person at the cash register pick the bag of them up, look intently at them, get this "wtf?" face, and then turn and ask us "um.....what is this?". That's right, Nashi pears aren't the most popular food here, probably because they have to be imported, and the price is therefore the same/if not higher than other, more traditional fruit such as pears, peaches, nectarines e.t.c......But I love 'em all the same ;)

So that's it for today's scoop (and what an empty scoop it was :O). I get to sleep in big-time tomorrow, so it'll be a late one, investigating more about the JET programme probably :).

Happy days

Me likee the overtime pay

2008-12-10T19:24:00.000-08:00

My day in a nutshell until now:

>wake up
>go to work
>sweat alot at work in the hot morning sun, lugging pallets of stock to and fro
>work two hours overtime at increased rate of pay :D:D:D:D:D, spending whole two hours building a flat-pack 'buffet table' (retail $139, don't buy it, it's a crock)(for those who don't know what "it's a crock" means, it is short for "it's a crock of shit", same as saying load of crap)
>somehow manage to ride home in a hungry daze
>collapse in airconditioned room and watch JET youtube videos (lucky buggers, being in Japan :'( )
>write crappy and mundane blog entry

and that's it so far....

Oh yeah, Fred and I played some hardcore squash last night, and although he won every game, I played better than I ever have....lol, bit sad but meh.

No more work until Saturday!!!!! :D:D:D (that's nearly two whole days!) sleep-in tomorrow woot-woot!

Please Chuck Norris, give me something to write about

2008-12-09T20:45:00.000-08:00

My day has been run-of-the mill so far......'nuff said. Work 7am-11am. Oh yeah, Fred cracked a shop window while we were unloading pallets of stock hehe. Funnier because it wasn't our shop window, it was Just Jeans' window :P.... Company insurance covers it though, so 'tis all cool.

Fred and I are going to play some squash later this arvo hopefully, so yeah.....that's my day so far :S

Chillaxin at Cheap Chilli Tuesday (say that one ten times fast)

2008-12-09T05:23:00.000-08:00

Woot! I just slammed down 4 chilli's in a row! Part of Cactus Jack's cheap chilli Tuesday (all you can eat for $8).

My stomach tastes like burning.

ahem testing, testing...

2008-12-08T21:59:00.000-08:00

This entry is really just a mini test to see if my brand spankin' new blog works. It's shiny and still has that "new blog" smell...

Today was pretty unueventful. Had work from 7am-3pm :S gotta love 7.5 hours (after breaks) of trudging around Crazy Clarkes, putting things on shelves, cleaning, answering customers' questions about where stuff is ("um, it's right behind you on that shelf sir"), putting same stuff back on shelves because customers that come into our store have slippery fingers, and every product they touch somehow ends up on the floor or way over the other side of the shop.
But I have made it yet another day, another minimum wage dollar.

Soon after coming home, I found that Leonie created some cool edited photos of Fred, herself and I. I made mine into my facebook and blog profile picture straight away, because it rocks :). Let us all remember that we only live in peace because of Harry prevailing over the Dark Lord.
I'm not a Harry Potter fanatic. I just have all the books, movies, 3 posters in my room, the top of the walls lined all the way around with poster art from the novels and books......ok, maybe a little bit fanatic, but I've got it under control. I go to my Harry Potter Anonymous class every second Wednesday night to keep it in check (so I don't one day just suddenly start regailing all those around me with detailed plotlines, possible explanations of why the avada kedavra curse left a mark on Harry when in other instances it has left the victims untouched yet dead....that kind of stuff...).

On the Uni front, still no email about re-enrolling for next year. Though I'm not really expecting anything until subject results come out from last semester. Oh yeah, for those who didn't know, I just finished my first year of university. I'm changing degree's now though, from Bachelor of Exercise Physiology to Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Anthropology. I chose Anth. for several reasons. 1) it looks interesting, studying other cultures from all around the world. 2) with many electives open to me, I can try some cool stuff for a bit of fun like Archeology, Japanese!!!! and German (really just doing this one to make up the credit points, seeing as I have already done 7 years of it in primary/high school). 3) I can transfer over 12, maybe even 15 credit points from my degree this year to the new one. This means (apparently, and I have my fingers crossed here) that I may be able to complete it in 2 and a half years, instead of 3 :D.

ok, tune in next time to read about......"drumrolllllllllll"......more boring stuff from my life haha.