Capping off Holocaust Awareness week with a day of Auschwitz

It was Holocaust Awareness Week and because of this I wore a paperclip on my shirt (well, for half a day anyway). To cap the week off, I spent a day of Auschwitz. (I said 'of', not 'at', although I'd really like to go some day). But first, here's a re-cap of the weekend so far:

Friday | Decided to go to Flemington Market to stock up on less-perishable but still fresh produce. After some housework at home I set off, 1st to the library for a quick return-&-borrow, then Flemington. I got most of what I wanted to get - celery, tomatoes that actually taste like tomatoes instead of bland fleshy things, a sack of potatoes, carrots, zuccinis... & some other things that I didn't plan on buying. For instance, I didn't realise the plants section at Flemington sell, well, plants that are SO much cheaper that at nurseries & other places. I, thus, bought a big pot of white cyclamen for a small $8 which normally it would cost somewhere in the $20 vicinity in other places. Bargain. All that at Flemington only took an hour, so I proceeded to go to the nearby DFO which I also haven't been in quite a while. I knew that the Oroton outlet at Market City looks like closing down because the other week when I tried to go there for fresh produce I saw them having extra 30% off of a much depleted stock & I saw this square sterling silver ring again which I 1st found at DFO some months ago. It was $99 down to $69. Didn't buy it of course, because I thought I remember it being just $29 at DFO all those months ago. This time at DFO, however, I saw the same square ring again, & indeed it was $29 so, like usual, I quickly snapped it up. I walked around for a bit more, looking at things here & there & buying absolutely nothing more, that is, until Jag which is 2 stores down from Oroton but because I went the other direction, completely at the end of my, umm, walk. Fabulous crocodile leather shoes reduced from $140 to just $40!!! I know I was actually looking for replacement of BLACK leather shoes, but since Aquila chooses to remain so damn expensive even at its outlet stores, I had to settle for the dark brown, very pointy, crocodile leather slip-ons instead (no lace-ups please, too lazy for that!). Quick lunch at home, some cooking (soup mainly) & putting away the produce it was time a quick half-hour work-out before dinner at the Fung's. Naturally we followed that up with 4 rounds of mahjongg (lost about 1/3 but who cares 'cos we never play with real money :P). 2 hours of Wii before finally going to bed at 1:30 even though I was already quite buggered by 12.

Saturday | Because of Wii I didn't end up getting up until 11 this morning. What I had planned as a day of catching up with my reading ended up being a day of TV, & here's where the day of Auschwitz comes in. 2 back-to-back episodes of Oprah was on Auschwitz, 1st with Dr Elie Wiesel then the winners of the Oprah essay competition discussing the impact of the Wiesel book 'Night'. There were many footages of Auschitz in the snow, plus some of other, more recent genocides like Rwanda, Bosnia, & Darfur. There was, of course, a very well scheduled (manipulated?) reunion of a Rwandan refugee with parents & younger siblings which she's not seen or contacted in 12 years. That was my 1st 'of' of Auschwitz. After lunch I settled down to watch 5 episodes of the Amazing Race All Stars, 1 leg of which the teams travelled from Warsaw to Krakow via Auschwitz-Birkenau. The task for to light candles & have a minute of silence. Rather daunting. That was my 2nd 'of' of Auschwitz. My 3rd 'of' of my day of Auschwitz was just now. Having been forced to read up on abjection as part of the 'dressin gup' of my thesis I turned to Julia Kristeva's Powers of Horror. Not 5 pages into her explanation of abjection there pops Auschwitz again as an example of 1 of her explanations of abjection - morbid fascination. It just seems I can't escape Auschwitz today.

Tomorrow onwards | More reading. 3 chapters of Kristeva to go thru in total & then there are probably 20 other articles on various things. Luckily I've already finished my readiing for this coming week's lab. Oh crap, dental on monday, & during the day. Great, need to make special trip down @&%#^&@

BTW, it was 'no' & no' from the 2 jobs that I applied a few weeks back, so no moving down to Melbourne any time soon.

A sure sign of aging...

On my way to the library just now I passed by a couple of Asian students, with the guy looking into the girl's phone. As I was passing by them I heard the guy said "that's actually a pretty good picture of a camel toe". Taken aback, I had another think about what I thought I heard before quickly realising that he actually said "that's actually pretty good picture for a camera phone"!! This of course got me thinking some more - is my hearing going that badly? I know bad hearing is a hereditary trait in my family, but surely not (way :P) before the age of 30? Am I really wearing a giant paperclip on my shirt? (Wait, how did I jumpt to that topic all of a sudden?) So many questions. (BTW, the paperclip is apparently a thing for Holocaust Awareness Week. This guy passed me a flyer with a paperclip on it which reads:

By wearing a paperclip during Holocaust Awareness Week, you are creating a link in the chain of awareness about the Holocaust and genocide around the world past & present.

Because I'm such a good Jew (& invalid & political prisoner & homo & Gypsy & Jehovah's Witness) I'm therefore wearing the paperclip. For the week anyways...

Ripping --> Muzzle

It's been a bad weekend thru & thru. I went & saw 300 yesterday which was not as bad as I expected. Why did I go & see it then, you ask? I bought this voucher booklet some time ago & the last 1 expires at the end of the month. I checked the release schedule a couple days back & realised that there is absolutely nothing interesting coming out until 1st wk of May, so I HAD to pick something just so the last remaining voucher doesn't get wasted (not like the drunken frat boy kind of wasted but you know what I mean). Seeing that I've already watched everything that I wanted to watch & is still in cinema (speaks so much for the lack of quality movies seeing that the booklet was only 5-voucher thick & I've had that for 2, maybe even 3 months) I had to pick something that is remotely interesting. 300 seemed 'interesting enough' at the time, rating higher than Mr Bean 2 & Are We Done Yet on my scale so I went & spent what I wanted to be a pretty quiet weekend before putting my head down again on the next chapter of editing. Afterwards I had a casual stroll around a nursery ('plants & pots' kind, not the 'baby' kind) before coming home & pottering around in the garden for the rest of the afternoon. Then it started turning bad. The Swans played like crap for pretty much the entire match, & then I lost hugh points on Wii Tennis because the computer partnered me up with lowly ranked Mii's!!

Then today I walked the dog out to the shopping centre to buy newspaper & as usual I tied him to the tap next to the rubbish bin on the side entrance which not that many people use. When I came back out not 3 minutes later there were 3 people standing around & after a brief chat I was told that B 'attacked' the young man & ripped the side pocket of his cargo pants & put a hole in his hoodie. I've never had that happened to me before, so after a bit of a talk obviously i offered to compensate for the damages & we agreed that I'd pay for a new pair of pants & a hoodie. The young man came buy around lunch time & handed me a bill of $170 to cover the damages. I of course got him to sign a piece of paper saying he received payment for the damages & that's the end of the matter. Luckily he was also quite understanding to not make a big deal out of it. Meanwhile, the $170 is coming out of your allowance, B! But then again that would be pretty hard to do seeing that he doesn't actually get an allowance... Anyways, he's now muzzled up, as a bit of a punishment for now & from now on when he gets his walk. No more shopping for you either!!

Speech of the day - I Have A Dream

I feel it's time for another Speech of the Day. Maybe it's because I left a file at home & now I can't the results on SPSS. This is my all time favourite speech, I Have A Dream, so enjoy.

Meanwhile, my Will is almost done. Just need to decide on a couple more things and it'll be ready for print, sign & file :)

Martin Luther King, from the steps of the Lincoln memorial, Washington DC, 28 August 1963

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.

But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check; a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’ But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check – a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

Now is the time to make real the promises of Democracy.

Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.

Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children.

Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads unto the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, ‘When will you be satisfied?’ We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.’

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with the little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plains, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning

My country, ‘tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty,

Of thee I sing:

Land where my fathers died,

Land of the pilgrims’ pride,

From every mountainside

Let freedom ring.

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvacious peaks of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we are free at last!’

Will

What was supposed to be another normal working day turned out to be quite tragic. No doubt the shooting is a bit out of the blue (but then again, it's America, & these kind of things seem to happen quite regularly. At least that's the feeling I get from hearing them on the news.) Anywho, having just finished editing a chapter, I decided that it is definitely time to finally write the will that I have been wanting to write for a couple of years. Not that I'm planning to die any time soon, but me being me (all rigid and pedantic) I would like to know how my things are/will be distributed when I die. Seeing that I've already had more than 2 years to think about how/where things will go, this process of actually writing a will should not take too long. I will be back on chapter-editing duties in no time. First step, though, is to find online a suitable template to copy. Luckily with constant Internet connection these are pretty easy to find (ha! who says the Internet needs a complete overhaul!!). Unfortunately, the Internet being the Internet most of these (free) samples are very American-oriented (there are free, state-by-state templates online) but how exactly will these apply to our Aussie context is a bit of a question mark. Anyways, I'll just list my requests first an see how that goes. As far as I know they don't necessarily have to be notified. Any kind of written document will suffice, i.e. no longer classified as intestate. It doesn't really matter if it is legal anyways just so I know there's a list somewhere of my wishes (I already have Excel lists of my books, CDs, DVDs, and current budget. Pedantic much, right?). Let's see how I go today. [Great, found a site with sample wills for all occasions, except it charges a hell of a lot membership fees! Sticking to the freebies)

Meanwhile, parents going away for 3 months (12 weeks) from next Monday. Will try & have a dinner/games party later next month to kill boredem.

Happy Easter everybody!

It's Easter again which means 4 days straight of public holiday. It doesn't/didn't actually make that big a difference to me seeing I usually I spend Mondays & Fridays at home 'working' anyway. The only difference was that there were actual ppl home to distract me even more. I spent Easter Friday marking assignments & then the rest of the wkend playing, thinking, more playing, thinking about working, bday dinner for Gekko, TV, and then finally some work last night. It was much easier than I thought it would go. My relatively lacklustre wkend allowed/forced me to stay awake until very early this morning, which meant that I had some time to think about ow else to change/improve the thesis. I now have a much clearer view of what to do & hopefully can get it off my back soon. Still no sign of a joint meeting with Kev & Scott though. Wonder when is Kev flying off to San Fran...

Meanwhile, applied for 2 jobs last wk while bored at, funnily enough, work. Don't think I'll have a chance with 1 of them, & given my time contraint (no full time work until at least late June) I doubt that the other would wait around for that long either. Let's just wait & see.

This week's procrastinations

Yes, still doing the PhD thing. Should really be finishing it off, but as per usual (& so many others) there are plenty of other things that serve as distractions. Even thought TV is on an Easter hiatus (well, some shows like Ugly Betty & Grey's Anatomy & Lost), there are still plenty of other contenders. For this week, the procrastinations have been:

1. Still Wii-playing
2. The Sydney Swans vs West Coast Eagles match, as part of the 3-match Telstra pass (damn 1-point loss again!)
3. watching The Departed just now
4. More reading (this kinda helps actually, seeing that I'm including most of these articles in my to-be revamped versions of the PhD)
5. There wasn't much happening at 'work' work either so I bummed around by looking up jobs all over the place. Also looked up avenues of working in the UK. Can't believe the only way that I can work there legally (barring the working holiday visa which only allows me to work up to 1 yr out of the 2-yr stay) is to pay ₤331 application fee & pretend that I'm moving there permanently!
6. Oh yeah, & writing this blog :P

OMG, how excitment!

I'm even happier that I bought the now! I just read on SMH that they're going to be a new release that have both Mario & Sonic in the same game!!! I'm so getting that when it comes out! How excitement!!

Plan of action

Ok, have devised a plan of action on how to tackel my substandard thesis :

1. change wordings on some resutls chapters to make it sound more, umm, rounded
2. another sentence or 2 on justification of field sites.
3. probably need to defend choice of research material more also seeing that co-sup have 'Googled' research that counter my arguments.
4. add in a couple more definitions
5. cut back on concluding sections in the result chapters (3 pages each does sound a bit much. No wonder I'm already over the word limit with a couple of sections still MIA...)

There, sounds much better. Sound be out of here in 5 or 10

Ooh, tennis tonight

24

Finally got my WiiFitness age down to my, umm, 'real' age (well, it was real to me not so long ago). All those crunches & push-ups has really paid off. Can't wait to try out my new consolidated core on actual tennis this coming tuesday seeing that last week was rained out. Must cut back on Wii, however, because there's much work ahead with fixing my supposedly substandard thesis.

OK, I've had time to mull over it and it's not as big a deal as I first thought. I agree on some points about the analyses (which I knew was a bit of a problem before hand that I just hadn't gotten around to fixing yet) but the criticisms on my theory & literature I can't really see his grounds. Will not totally ignore them, but not many changes. Same with the field site justifications. Just need a couple more explanations and they should be done. The only puzzling comment is the 'substandard expression'. Still no idea where is Scott pointing that at...

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Damn it! Still need to get memory cards for . How much more do I have to shell out for accessories??

Apparently I still care

I was my cousin Christins's graduation this past Tuesday so obviously when I turned up the conversation naturally drifts off to when will I get graduating. My stock answer is, of course, some time this semester. I was asked the same question last night by my town planner cousin Becks when I needed to ask her something work-related. Needless to say, stock answer. But apparently, my stock answer could very well be wrong.

Finally recevied comments from my new co-supervisor on my chapters this morning and they can only be described by 2 words - not good. I knew that there are some revisions that need to be done but had no idea (according to Scott) that I am THIS far behind. According to Scott (new co-sup), my chapters are nowhere need submitable state, for either PhD or Master (!!). The list of problems goes on & on (naive analyses, he doesn't buy my major concept, issues with fieldwork not addressed, expressions "substandard", ...). Like I said, I knew of some minor problems (eg, change some wordings so that the findings don't look so naive/one-dimensional) but not to his extent. But then again, I'm pretty sure 2 of my chosen markers would be pretty sympathetic towards my thesis, so the 'substandard' of my thesis is not as disastrous as one would think. Nonetheless, this process taught me 1 thing - that apparently I still care about the stupid PhD. I thought, after all these time, & especially since towards the end of 2nd year, I was way over this whole process of post-grad studies (& thoughts of discontinuing were never far away). Put simply, I thought I was ambivalent towards the outcome of this. But reading these negative comments, I realised that I actually still care about the outcome, and obviously not wanting to walk away (after 4 years) with (i) an outright fail, or (ii) an incomplete thesis. Many tweakings ahead. Many tweakings ahead indeed. Sigh......

Hah!

28! Suck on that Wii Fitness! Only a few more years to go then :P

I'm not bloody 45!!!

I recently (last friday) bought a Nintendo Wii. It's EXTREMELY fun to play even though I only have 2 game discs so far. It's also my 1st venture back into video gaming in probably 18 yrs. well, I've played but not bought, let's put it that way. The old Nintendo Family Computer died a few yrs back but for some reasons still sit in our upstairs lounge. Meanwhile the old GameBoy, which also died a couple yrs back, have already been chucked. The mystery. Anywho, so, venturing in Wii land. it's a motion-sensitive game, & with the WiiSport disc that comes with the console, it's a VERY fun way of working out (well, light workout anyways). Apart from the 5 sports (tennis, baseball, bowling, golf & boxing) there is also 1 training & 1 fitness section. The fitness section, in particular, is a random selection of 3 of the 15 training sessions played in succession to test your physical fitness & then gives you a fitness age. The 1st time that I played it (saturday) i tested 45. 45!!! Unbelievable! I'm not bloody 45!!! (Oh wait, I already said that in the title) Worse still, it only allows you to test your fitness age once a day (well, once for each Mii character) so I couldn't avenge until today, which fortunately was 32. Still not my real age but much closer. I'm sure the next time I test I'd go WAY lower again. Into the teens probably, which is only just a pinch younger than my real age (oh shut up! Don't go giving me evils!)

Another 1 bites the dust

Dang it! Just had coffee with the 2 Dans & bloody Robson is ready to submit his thesis!?!?!? He started a year after I did & his is now ready to go in & under word limit! Meanwhile I'm still unmotivated, i.e. doing it very slowly & very sporadically. Also need to cut some parts because at the moment it looks to be about 20,000 words over the 'limit' (it's more like a guideline really, but 120,000 words does sound a bit much. Maybe I should move the field site descriptions to Appendix? I don't really have an Appendix at the moment...). Anyways, really should settle & put my head down. But still, Anne is more likely to be the next to submit. Oh gawd, I'm being passed by so many others!?!?!

Speech of the day

Went & watched Bobby today & was slightly disappointed (the 2 women who were sniggering at everything didn't help. What could have been so funny about freckly Lindsay Lohan getting her nails done??). I thought some of the storylines dragged on a bit & some were pretty pointless (the 2 youngies tripping out with Ashton Kutcher's drug den operation at the hotel for example) but it did get me back into reading speeches again (I have 2 books on speeches - the Penguin Book Of Twentieth-Century Speeches, and Speeches That Changes The World, both of which I haven yet to finish). There was only 1 RFK speech in Penguin so I had to go digging on the Internet a bit. The 1 below is the speech that was played during the ending of the movie, & the 1st few paragraphs were rather good. No Martin Luther King's 'I Have A Dream' but still good. Also, did not realise what a big year 1968 was in terms of assassinations - Warhol, King & RFK!

The Mindless Menace of Violence
Robert Francis Kennedy, City Club of Cleveland, Ohio, 5th April, 1968

This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America

It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.

Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet.

No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.

Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.

"Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, "there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs."

Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.

Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.

This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.

I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.

We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.

Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.

Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.

But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again, which again stains our land and every one of our lives.

A couple of weeks ago we had 2 (dead) trees chopped down. Even now the backyard is still looking a mess, with some of the other, lower plants trampled by the loggers or flattened by the fallen trees. Those trees have been romoved now, of course, but there are still many branches lying around doing nothing (I guess that means they're lazy branches then ). Our dog has also taken a liking into sleeping in/under some of these leafy branches, & yesterday he got stuck. See link for a video of what happened. Unfortunately like most animals they freeze when they see a camera, so not much movement happening in the video. It ran away as soon as the video timed out needless to say

Mickey Mouse

Bought new fish on my way home from work today. I've been meaning to add to my tv-quarium for a while, but it's always the same old things that you see at the aquarium shops. Worse still, they're usually red, which my tank is dominated by. I went to a different shop today, at Baulkham Hills, because I know they have the more unusual stuff & a great variety. I wasn't disappointed. As my tv-quairum houses only livebearers (bar the 2 silversharks & a bristlenose cleaner) I wanted only to add more livebearers. This shop at BH have a lot of varieties of livebearers, saltwater fish, rarer goldfishes, parrots, rabbits, spiders, & even a snake. I ended up buying a pair of platies that I've never seen before - they're called the Mickey Mouse platies, because if you look at their tails from the side they look just like MM's head! I also bought 3 golden swordtails just to balance out the colours a bit more. Videos still uploading... (1) (2)

Shall try & upload some 'smaller' videos from my trips when I'm at a faster connection next wk.

Rustic framing

Having another day-off at home to, umm, 'work' on my thesis. And of course, during stressful times like these 1 has to find ways of unwinding and relaxing. A couple weeks back I finished doing up the classic poster series of a Casablanca jigsaw puzzle & of course have backed it up with backing paper & cardboard. Now it's stiff as. And with the passionfruit vine torn down there are extra lattice lying around in our backyard, & I though what better way to complement the classic poster series than with a rustic frame!?! At first I was just going to go to the shops & buy a frame then 'rustic' it up, but there are any that are big enough. So not to chop down the jigsaw puzzle, I resorted to making 1 up myself. A quick stop at the hardware store to get a mitre box & it's an hour or so in the backyard sawing, staping & nailing up my new frame:

It fits like a glove but alas the rustic look doesn't fit all that well. Now I've painted it sandy yellow with a golden top layer (& a crackling layer in between so the sandy yellow would still come through) to sort of match up with the bought 1 that I have for my Gustav Klimt 'Kiss' jigsaw puzzle which I still have yet to finish doing up. Hmm, project, project...

新年快樂

恭喜發財 & 新年快樂 to everyone!!

NO apols to anyone who can't read traditional Chinese. Tough!

Oh how I love you how I love you ...

For starters, that is the song from a Sydney Swans commercial from a few years back, kind of a retro-link to a Jolson song. And yes, I DO love them heaps. can you imagine anything more exciting than a good-ol' game of AFL (watching of course, I can't play it for peanuts!), particularly a Swans game?? I've been to a few over the years, and like last year we're buying the Telstra package again this year, only this time minus the SCG game (but cheaper!!) Here are my beloved Swannies doing a fan-fest thing at my local shopping centre today. F-ing hell, so many people! I could only get 3 autographs of the 6 that were there the lines were so long! Granted I was there a little later than they had arrived because I was at work. But still, oh Swannies!!!

Electric explosion

The electric substation of the building next to us (at work, not at home) threw a bit of a hissy fit last Thursday. I guess it might be a bit old & it was a bit of a humid day, but soon after lunch (1:30-ish) when Barb came back from lunch she told us that there were black smoke coming out of a roller door downstairs (we didn't know what is/was behind that roller door at that stage), & out of curiosity Faye (who is also our floor's fire warden) when downstairs (to take a ciggy break of all thing!?!?!) & checked things out. By that stage the fire trucks had already arrived & they told Faye that we better start packing 'cause they were evacuating us soon. We did as such, & not 5 minutes the alarm sounded & we were scuttled downstairs, cross the closed-off road, went around the building & went to the assembly area 5 minutes or so away. We're on the 4th floor so naturally be bump into people from lower floors as we went down. By the time we got to the ground floor & crossed the road, the 'thing' behind the roller door start exploding (not like nuclear bomb, mushroom cloud explosion, but loud bangs in quick successions. Much like chinese fire crackers but not as quick in succession). After waiting for a while we were told not to expect to get back in that afternoon, so we all went our separate ways. SOme went home (actually most went home) while I, who is without a ride until 5pm, had plenty of time to kill. Did the library, window shopped, & finally sat down & had a haircut instead. 4-ish & I decided to sneak by to see if there's anyway of going back to the office & surf the net, & the fire trucks were all gone & doors wide open. Great! Spent the rest of the time surfing the net. Lesson of this incident is, while we were praised for our prompt respond to the evacuation alarm, DON'T complain about having to WALK DOWN 4 FLIGHTS OF STAIRS!! Can you actually believe someone complained about having to walk down some stairs!?!?! My typical sarcastic respond was of course, "well then, jump!" No, really.

Meanwhile, the substation is still being fixed. I walked by at least 4 times yesterday. 8:30 - arriving at worl. No one was working on it. 12:30 - out to lunch. Workmen standing by it talking about something electrical. 1:30 - back from lunch. More workmen turned up to sit around the burnt substation having coffee & snack. 4:30 - going to post office on way home. All workmen, including the van, were gone. Roller door pulled down, presumably so that can't tell if any work had been done on the substation. Today (1 week post-explosion) - roller door area still cordoned off, no sign of workmen, again.

Good night out, good work-out

The made-up holiday of Valentine's Day is coming up yet again which means that Robson's birthday is also near. This year we went to a favorite haunt of ours - the Heritage Belgian Beer Cafe down at the Rocks - this past friday. It was a great night out as I decided not to do anything during the day either except clean up bits and pieces & clear out some stuff from my hard disc to DVDs. I bus-ed in early to the city to have a bit of a walk around, window-shopped at the Rocks & took some photos (which I still haven't downloaded onto my laptop...). The beer, food & company were al very good, & we stuck around for 5 hours! Well, I stuck around about 5 hours. Some stayed on after I'd left to catch my bus home at 11:30.

The following day it was time for a good work out. Physical work out. I've been planning this for months and now it's finally the right time. The trellis that my passionfruit plant has been leaning on for the last few yrs is/was all brittle & keeps falling over, so yesterday morning (after sleeping in, naturally) I spent a couple of hours collecting the remaining fruits & chopping the whole plant back to its barest. A quick stop for lunch, then it was building the new metal arches that it now climbs over, forking out compost, sugarcane mulching, & some power composting (lawn-mower over the passionfruit vines that I chopped down, pressed down by a heavy layer of chicken shit). I was thoroughly soaked through halfway through that work out (we're unseasonably humid at the moment). Now it's looking all bare & naked. Hopefully it'll fruit again at the end of the year (1 vines produces about 100 fruits a season, which is more than we can handle in this household. I've had to resolve to making passionfruit muffins & cookies before they spoil!). Still no flowers on my guava trees though...

Chinese New Year dinners this coming friday & saturday.

How excitement!

It’s been a bit of a strange week so far & today I took a turn for an even stranger ending to the week. Locked myself in the house for both Sunday & Monday to finish rewriting Ch 6 before a day at uni on Tuesday. Tennis as usual that night & didn’t play well. Back again at uni on Wednesday which threw me off pattern a bit seeing that I haven’t spent that much time at uni in any week for a very long time. I was there to meet an academic who is based in ADFA (Canberra) but was travelling up that day for his own meetings. He squeezed me into his schedule to talk a bit about finishing off my thesis (unfortunately not ‘for me’, but more like ‘help me finish it’ kinda thing). Kev (supervisor) & I had talked about bringing him on board as a co-supervisor also so the more reason to meet with him. Now the end is finally very near. There’s just some paperwork to do next week to sign on the new co-supervisor & get on with it. The worst bit, though, is that I still haven’t had from someone who had they were going to give me an answer about 3 weeks back & I don’t know where I would be/how much time I would have in the next few months for the thesis. It’s simply unsettling. Hassled the guy again on Tuesday via email but still no reply. Is he off his nuts or just ignoring me & put me on the blocked list? Must investigate more next week.

Meanwhile, after pretending to be sick (mentally, obviously) so I could go to uni yesterday (some strange logic here, but it’ll make sense if you read on) I returned to WESTIR today for ‘work’ work. Still no word from freaking Penrith Council, i.e. can’t start on the new project --> sitting around without much to do. That part of my life has turned out to be a real boring drag, ‘cause you see there are only so many relevant websites & report that one can visit and, more importantly, endure. Without the go-ahead for this new project, we don’t have much to go on because the new Census data won’t come out for another 8 months. But luckily, as far as I can tell we’d get some answers from Council early next week & start delegation immediately. Have not been this eager to be given work in a long time.

But just as we were all settling back into the mundane boredom after lunch today an unexpected excitement came along. Barb was coming back from lunch & she saw black smoke coming out of a roller door next to out building’s entrance. Soon after the fire brigade arrived & Faye, who was taking a ciggy break at the time, was told by the firemen to get ready for an evacuation. Evacuation! Not a pretend 1, but a real thing! Haven’t had that for a long time! The smell of the smoke was not very pleasant anyway so it was better to be out than in. The alarm finally sounded & we made our way down the fire stairs & out the building. Stupid thing was that roller door wasn’t that far from our fire stair exit (probably about 20m, 25m max) & the smell of that smoke was just overwhelmingly intense as we exited & were rushed to the left (roller door on right). We haven’t even been out of the building 5 minutes, & needless to say haven’t even half finished joking about the situation (eg, “must be some disgruntled fatties trying to bomb Jenny Craig”) (Jenny Craig was the 1^st shop next to the roller door) than the roller door started exploding!! OK, so it wasn’t like the-plane-crashed-into-the-World-Trade-Centre kind of exploding, but a more like a quick succession of loud pops that went on for maybe 3-5 minutes. We were of course hurried off by the fire brigade to get away. The floor fire wardens stuck around to find out what was happening & we were told we wouldn’t be able to get back into the building for an hour or 2 (mind you, this was only ¼ past 2 even after all that excitement. It’s taking me longer to type this up than to live through the whole thing!). We decided it wasn’t worth it to wait around so an early mark for everybody! Yippy! Seeing that my ride wasn’t getting off work until 5, I had a bit of time to kill. I checked out stuff at Westfield, went to the library, checked out stuff at the mall, I even had time for a hair cut before finally decided to go pass the office again at ¼ past 4 to see if it was safe to sneak back in (It was). Oh my beloved Internet, how I missed you! Thus ended the excitement of the day.

Curtains.

The end.

What's that smell?

OK, so by now probably everyone on earth knows that Federer won the Aus Open again in pretty convincing fashion. Naturally I have to put my 2 cents in it, & I'm gonna have to back track a bit. Back to the semi finals late last week. Any boy, were they over quick. I took a pit stop at the end of the 1st set of the Federer-Roddick semi & by the time I'm back from the toilet they were already (as much as I'd like to say 'slogging it out' but we all know that weasn't the case) going at it in the 3rd set! That was some beating. At least Roddick can say Haas won 1 fewer game than he did & his (Haas') conqurer was a (comparatively, but who isn't when you're compared to Federer?) lesser opponent. I didn't head down south this year but you just gotta feel for those who bought those expensive tickets for the 2 semis. Don't get me wrong, they were very spectacular matches, but they were over WAY too quickly. There were hardly any contests in them.

Meanwhile, swtiching the focus onto the women's final. It was only going to go, at max, 3 sets so naturally you wouldn't expect it to go for very long. The 2 men's semis were already short enough (both around the 1.5 hrs mark), the women's final was even shorter - by 1/2 hr actually (so if you do the math they actually work out to be about the same per set. Anyways...) That was an even worse beating, with the lower ranked beating the crap out of the regained world no. 1 & reigning US Open champ Shriekaova. For a second I though we were going to beat last yr's record & that match was only 8 games long when the soon-to-be divorced Henin-Hardenne (I guess it'll be back to Henin from now on?) forfeited. Digression: little psychic ol' me guessed right! Some in my little circle guessed 'pregnancy' but the 1st & only thing that popped into my head when she annouced that she wasn't coming to Aus was marital problems. If there were odds on that I maybe should've put some Euros on that. But I guess that could be interpreted as bad taste in some odd ways...

So, an explanation of the title - what's that smell? I guess it depends on which angle you're looking/smelling at it. Was it the sweet taste/smell of success, or was it the stench of rotted game plans & poor execution? No, more like the latter judging by the scorelines...

With the tennis finished for now, it's back to 'normal' TV viewing. Yay! Luckily I'm finishing my studies real soon (right, better do something about that) 'cos there're just way too many programs I want to watch. Apart from the old faithfuls D Housewives, Grey's & Lost, there are of course the newbies of Bros & Siss, Heroes & Ugly Betty. So much to watch, so little time. Thank God OC is finishing soon so I'd have 1 fewer program to chase.

Meanwhile, the seamail that I sent back from Honkers had arrived 2 weeks early! Yippy! My winter clothes are back! Not that we'd need it, back up to 37'C tomorrow. But there were also other little bits & pieces in that seamail, like the anatomically-correct squeeze-a-toy thingy (obviously a Japanese thing) that blushes & shivers if you, well, squeeze it; my moomin bowl & spoon set; my Snoopy & Charlie Brown coffe mugs set; and my trip stuff - maps, etc. Now, where can I find room to put them...

13%

Lately, for reasons unknown to most of you, I have been taking advantage of the post-xmas sale here in the land of Aus. Ok, Ok, so I have bought plenty already while I was on my recent trip to East Asia. Too much, in fact, that I am having difficulty finding storage for some of my newest conquests. While still feeling unmotivated about working/studying (although I finally re-started my studies again earlier this week) I have yet to go around to spring cleaning out my closet. The short sleeve sections are getting chockers, the winter wooly section is getting chockers, my pants sections are getting chockers … The list does on. But I digress. Back to post-xmas shopping. My latest addition this week can be found in either the gadget or health category. It is none other than the scale. Not just any scale, ‘cos otherwise why would/could it be considered a gadget. It is a DIGITAL scale. And no, that’s not what makes it gadgetry either. It’s the fact that it has the memory capacity of storage the basic info (height, age) of up to 5 people (FIVE!!!), and with a simple switch, measures your body fat % also. That’s me, 13%. Needless to say I’m on the ‘thin’ side of the scale (it has 4 categories – thin, normal, stout, & obese), but only borderline. For a person under 30 years of age (which fortunately I still am) the ‘normal’ body fat % is between 14 & 20. Shall measure regularly, but given how I eat & what I eat I doubt that number would fluctuate much.

Still looking all over for 阿信的故事 DVD boxset. It looks like A$400 for the Taiwanese version. OK, so there are nearly 480 episodes in the 7 boxsets that make up the entire series, but still it's a little much. Must keep looking.

Summer of tennis/tannist

It’s January and of course it’s tennis time. First with the Hopman Cup on day & night way over in Perth (& on TV on Aunty), followed by what has become out annual pilgrimage to the Sydney Olympic Park – the former adidas International – Medibank International. I cannot remember for how years straight I’ve been going to the tournament in a row, but definitely for at least the last 3 years, possibly 5. The attending field differs from year to year, of course, but this year the women’s field is particularly strong. Prior to the withdrawal of the current world no. 1 (Justine Henin-Hardenne), 18 of the world’s top 20 were scheduled to play here, including 9 of the world’s top 10 (barring the grunt-maestress, the 1 Maria Sharapova). We usually buy the Australian Tennis Magazine which used to have a free ground pass included in its January edition. But this year, that very promotion no longer exists, so we had to shell out $$s to buy actual tickets. Luckily, Medibank is running a BOGOF promotion (for non-Aussies, BOGOF is of course Buy One Get One Free), so we bought 2 centre court tickets, & seeing that I still have student concession until end of March, a concession ground pass. Like usual, lots of running around scouting out the hard workers who come out to practice on the various courts, as well as occasionally (stress ‘occasionally’) sitting down to watch smidges of matches while either (1) when feeling hungry, or (2) when feeling tired. Autograph hunting was much more fruitful (ha, fruitful ^_^) than last year’s Aus Open where I only got 1 (yes, 1) autograph, that of the sour-grape Davydenko (see here for reasons of sour-grape status). Amongst my victims included soon-to-be retiree Kim Clijsters, defending Aus Open champ Amelie Mauresmo, Nadia Petrova, and on the men’s side the very hilarious Dmitry ‘Dima’ Tursunov, the smiling assasin Marcos Baghdatis … All that running about also doubled as a good tanning session, which hopefully I can keep up for a little while. Maybe I should stay outdoors a bit more, but it's so hot …

Heading home

After almost 5 weeks, It's time to go home. Yes, it's been 2 days short of 5 weeks since I left the Aussie shores, & so much has changed since then. I'm (personally) about 2-3 kilos heavier, probably A$2,500 poorer (which is still a bargain considering the travelling & shopping that I've done), have a job interview lined up 6.5 hours after I land, & most of all not quite as healthy. Pooping (sorry for the faeces talk) has been irregular for pretty much the entire time I've been away, only for the last week or so (since Beijing) I've been, well, 'watery'. Now I'm even flu-y. I wonder if I'd actually have enough fitness for the uni meeting & interview tomorrow.

On brighter news, my camera is fixed. I was trying to stuff it into my carry-on luggage just now & as usual it beeps just as much as you try to move it. In case it starts beeping again mid-flight, I was going to take the battery out when the stuck lense decided to retreat & function normally again. Great. It gets stuck for a week & stopped me from taking pictures of the Great Wall & the wedding from MY camera, & now just as I'm leaving (checked in, arrived at airport, bought duty free, about to board & all) it decides to function again. At least I don't have to send it out to be fixed when I get back. I fewer thing to do on my already stuffed schedule for the week.

Moving on to sad news, received email that my co-supervisor's mother has passed away over the weekend. That makes 2 funerals within a month. And refering to my earlier post (http://ragdearyme.blogspot.com/2006/11/three-weddings-funeral.html) it is no longer 3 weddings & a funeral, but 3 weddings & 2 funerals. But, having said that, I've heard that this comign funeral is family only, so probably still only going to be just 3 weddings & a funeral for me.


Ergh, feeling so sick...

Meanwhile, here is a selction of my Beijing photos:.

Beijing tour, in English

I went for a long weekend tour of Beijing with Angie (my cousin) this past weekend. As those of you who follow would know, I usually open each blog with a related pic or have a link to some uploaded photos of the said trip. Alas, I can't do it for this post. At least not yet. Reason shall be revealed asap.

I was going to go to Beijing by myself & on an airfares + hotel package, but seeing that Angie is also back & she is also interested, we decided to join a tour instead. Reason being we were both a bit worried about the transport situation - not that we thought Beijing would not be easy to travel around, but that the traffic would be rather crazy & that we'd more likely be run over 3 times crossing a street than anything else. So we joined a 4-day tour, which started very (and I stress VERY) early last Friday morning & finished Monday night. How early? We needed to be at the airport by 6am. We ordered a cab for 5:30, but because I had a pretty big dinner the night before & lots of tea, I couldn't sleep at all that night. Luckily I had a job appliction to do so that killed some time. Anyways, we knew Beijing was going to be cold, but because we have been in te temperate to warm weather of HK for a while, the freezing coldness of Beijing kinda came as a shock. Daily temparatures ranged from -5'C to +5'C, but for some reason it felt colder. Despite the fact that I brought along a down jacket that I borrowed from my uncle my legs & feet were still freezing. It was so cold that the 1st chance we got we went to the shops & bought underlays (long johns) & wore that everywhere for the next 3 days until we reached the airport.

We went to lots of tourist attractions. The 1st day after lunch we went to the Temple of Heaven (天壇) followed by free/dinner time at 王府井. Day 2 we spent the morning at (頤和園Summer Palace) & the afternoon at 紫禁城 (Forbidden City) with silk shopping snugged in during the day. Day 3 was jade shopping, traditional chinese medicine, 十三陵 (Ming Dynasty Tombs), & the best part of the tour - 萬里長城 (Great Wall). I'd show you pics, but unfortunately my camera broke while we were at the jade factory (the lens refuses to go back in when I was trying to turn it off. So there aren't any pics of the Great Wall on my camera. Luckily I went with Angie so all the pics from then on are on hers. I'm still waiting for a reply form the Canon customer service to see how I can get it fixed. So, for now, people, you just have to wait until I get the pics off Angie or I go download my own pics when I get home. Hopefully I get my Great Wall pics soon...

Oh right, right. English tour. We joined a HK tour company, but most of the people on the tour with us came back to HK from overseas (to live, to study, etc). Seriously, who would have time to go on a holiday tour at this time of year but OS residents? More still, the 4 girls sitting behind us were exchange students to HKU from various places in N America, there was a Englihs-born HK woman who married a Scot who now both live in Bordeaux (yes, French-land), 1 extended family of 8, with both of the guys my age born & grew up in the US... In the end, I ended up speaking English more than Cantonese, let along Mandarin. I think that was also the most English I have spoken since leaving Aussie shores a month ago. Great acclimatisation for my return-home trip :)

HK is finally getting cooler for winter (down to low teens by weekend). Only 5 more days for me before heading home. Have sent revised Ch 1 for meeting next Thursday. Hopefully I will also have a job interview lined up as well.