Friday, October 30, 2009
Today is officially the last teaching day of University. Can't say I feel too sad, who doesn't want to stop studying right? But I think its just one of those things where you have to lose it to know what you had.
I recall my first sem, I would be at the library right about now, reserving tables for friends, using the computer to blog about news I read on the net, giving my 2 cents worth on articles in the Economist. Which by the way I thought I was going too geeky because it seemed like I was the only one reading this stuff, and so I stopped, and lo and behold my macro lecturer brings back articles from the economist and I'm filled with ???
So I've gone back to reading the economist, and I must say it's a breath of fresh air. Reading about ideas I would never have thought of. Well off to study again. I still have a lot to get through, and my crazy lecturer gave an assignment thats due the day of the exam. I guess there's a first time for everything.
Dan
9:52 am
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Exams are round the corner. One week ago I felt completely unprepared, I had not begun my revision notes, I had no exam papers prepared, I had no clue as to how to start for this exam (quite strange right seeing as how it's my 6th university exam, but it just goes to show you can never be too prepared). So this week has been a rush to get those revision notes done, and to structure my revision.
And it's been amazing. I've nearly completed the revision notes for 2 subjects, and I'm about half way through one and a quarter way through another, which I think should be done by this weekend. Also, I was calculating my results for this semester so far so that I have a gauge as to how hard I have to work in the exams, and it's been quite encouraging, so I guess I'm starting to look at this exam with a bit of a positive light, rather than the negativity I had a couple weeks back.
Dan
1:20 pm
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Summer is such a double edged sword. I love it because I feel like the day never ends, but the day NEVER ends! It's now 7.22pm and it looks like its 4pm. If you check my twitter, I said the sky looked like it was 4pm an hour ago. That just goes to show that an hour has passed in real time, and the sun has barely moved.
Exam period is my frequent blogging season I think. Must be because I'm cooped up at home that my mind wanders between work and random thoughts. Today I was thinking about all my road trips in my 3 years here. I've been to Grampians, Great Ocean Road, Warrambool, Werribee Zoo, Dandenongs, Yarra Valley, Wilson Prom, Skiing at Falls Creek, and Gold Coast. Other than the time to the zoo, I've rented a car to drive to all these places. With all that money, plus the money I've gotten from tuition I could have bought a second hand car!
I guess its just one of those things where you think its always cheaper to rent, and when you sit down and do the calculations at the end of the day you realise that you could have bought a car and enjoyed life more than you did. But that's life, we always need the benefit of hindsight to see these things.
Off to more study now.
Dan
7:21 pm
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Finally had the time to sit down and start my exam preparations. The latest I've started thus far I feel so I'm feeling a bit insecure, or maybe its because its my final year.
Twitter has been interesting. The idea of micro-blogging hasn't sunk in yet, but I think I'm getting the hang of it.
Today's tutoring was terrible. I wanted to get it done by the morning, so I arranged to meet the student at 9am so that we can end by 1030am and I can reach back to the city before 12. So I woke up at 730am!!!! Took the tram down to the train station, and caught the train. When I reached the other side, I usually take a bus to the mall to meet him, but when I got to the station today, the bus was delayed!!! Not by 5 minutes, or 10 minutes but by 45 minutes!! It was so frustrating. I contemplated taking a cab down, but I figured it's pointless because then the money I spent to get to the mall would be how much I'd get from tuition. So I had to sit there and wait. Totally screwed up my schedule, and now I have to cram my exam revision for the rest of the day. Felt so demoralising on the way back because I reached back in the city at 1.30pm!! I've effectively lost the first half of my afternoon.
Dan
2:04 pm
Monday, October 19, 2009
I blogged a few entries ago about losing steam in blogging. Something that many out there can identify with. Well, I've learnt something new. It's called micro-blogging!! Or more commonly known as twitter. When I first heard of the idea, I thought that it wouldn't be very interesting, "following" people around their day. But once I saw it in use, I found that it wasn't a very bad idea. A good alternative for those who find having to sit down and organise their thoughts to write a short blog entry about their day too tiring. I guess one could argue to the extent that twitter is a good example of how we've become more lazy.
Having said all that, I have succumb to the pressure of twitter, and have made a twitter account for myself. But I won't give up blogging... for now. I find this so much easier in terms of writing. When twitting, I sit in front of the computer, or look at my iphone and think, what am I going to twit now??!! Some how, writing one liners that have not been put into any context is just weird for me.
Anyway, uni is ending!! It's kind of exciting and sad at the same time. This could well be the end of my formal education.
Dan
10:29 am
Monday, October 12, 2009
Exams are round the corner!!! Didn't know how close it was until the exam timetable came out. I guess its a good thing as its helped me to plan out my revision schedule. Hope it all goes well.
Went to the CraftExpo at the exhibition centre on sunday and it was quite fun. I'm not quite sure what it is about the crafts that is so appealing. Maybe it's because I've always had a desire to be able to create something, and in school the only time we were taught to create anything was in art class. Interestingly I scored an A2 for art in sec 2, what is more interesting is the response that follows after I tell people that. Do I not look like an artist???
Bought a small handheld sewing machine at the expo, and brought it home to try. Now I know I have no prior experience in using such a device, but I figured that since there weren't too many knobs and buttons on this thing, it should be simpler and more straightforward to use than the traditional one. Brought it home, and meddled around with it for an hour trying to figure out why it wasn't working (the problem was that the cloth was feeding out of the machine that other way). So after a long hour of wondering how such a small and simple looking device had managed to fool me, I decided to take everything apart to see what was wrong. The first and most obvious thing to take out was the batteries. So I flipped it over, and that was when I realised that I had put the batteries in the opposite way. Boy would I be stupid if that was the problem, but no harm giving it a try, and guess what??!! I am stupid. The batteries were in the other way, so the circuit in the machine was reversed, thats why my cloth kept feeding out of the machine the wrong way!!
Dan
5:59 pm
Monday, October 05, 2009
Summer is coming!! So many things have happened, I think this is going to be a long post. To start, I think I've become one of those people who just accumulate events and then pour it all out on the blog after a long time. But I guess its better than those who accumulate the events and then forget about blogging at all because it's become too much. I hope this isn't some progressive thing, where bloggers first start off blogging consistently, and then get weary and blog occasionally, and finally don't blog at all because weariness has become laziness. Anyhow, on the last day of the holidays, a few of Rachelle's friends rented a lot at the Camberwell market and set up a stall to sell off their second hand stuff. The entire market builds around the idea that one man's trash is another man's treasure. Rach and I also used it as an avenue to market our online shop. We were quite excited. We made name cards, and backings for the studs, it all looked very professional, but it was quite disappointing when nothing sold (to the public at least, some friends bought), and we kept a majority of our name cards. But fret not, we learnt some very valuable lessons. We came to realise that the market didn't have our target audience, and that we need to build up on our inventory of hand embroidered pouches, somehow laying out 4 pouches on a table looks very different from listing 4 pouches online. But we will persevere and maybe you'll hear of some success stories soon! You can follow us on lacethread.wordpress.com. On a sadder note, the semester has begun. And somehow I can feel the loss of steam in my engine. What a time to come right? The last semester of the last year, but maybe its because that its the last of the last that I've got the loss. Didn't do too well on the final mid term, and that jolted me back up, so I've begun my exam revision 2 weeks earlier than I normally would. Hopefully that helps to ease some of the stress.Tuitioning has been very good. Progressed from 1 student to 3 students now!! And I think thats it for this semester. As exciting as that journey has been, I think anymore students now will just kill me. On the bright side, tutoring these students has helped me in my revision and also expanded my knowledge in areas of economics I probably won't be able to learn, like property economics!! So that's my rather long post.
Dan
11:47 pm