'Diary' entry

A paucity of posts over the last few days due to a few incidents surrounding the start of uni...

First I found out that the credit transfer form I filled out at the end of semester 'probably' hasn't been received, seeing as the course credit isn't showing up on my academic record yet- this I found out by chance when enquiring about something else altogether, and it's just as well I was notified seeing as I'll be graduating this year, something I can't do without credit for the courses I've completed! Mind you, the person I was told to email in order to track down the wayward credit transfer form hasn't replied, and I emailed him on Friday, so if the people in charge of organising these things are that slack perhaps my form hasn't actually been lost, it's just that they're very very slow.



Meanwhile, I was told that a course I wanted to enrol in required me to come up with a topic (for a 5000 word mini-thesis/literature review/presentation) and find someone on the academic staff to supervise me before I could enrol! It sounded a lot more intimidating than it probably is in reality, but of course I had to have a panic: 'why would anyone want to supervise me?', 'what if my topic is crap?'... and so on. It seems that I might actually get to have my favourite lecturer as my supervisor- not because I'm special, but because I'm apparently one of only two people taking the course. Suits me just fine. All the most interesting courses I've done have involved this particular lecturer in one way or another, so I'll be stoked if she's willing to supervise me!



All the other courses I'm doing are compulsory, and largely irrelevant to my main interest, nutrition. I found out from one of my friends who is still in the early stages of the Food Science and Nutrition programme that the uni has come up with the bright idea of allowing students to choose a 'stream', meaning they get to specialise more in either food science or nutrition. That would have been nice 2 years ago, but as I'm graduating this year I have to persevere with sucky courses like microbiology and 'food safety and quality management'. Yay-fucken-ay. The lecturers for FSQM are pretty good, but the subject material looks like it will send me to sleep. HACCP plans? Snore... The food preservation subject I'm doing is of interest solely because I love learning more about the food I eat, but totally irrelevant to my desired career path. At least I have a friend doing all the same subjects. It's always much less painful when you have someone doing the same boring stuff...

Gam has another clinic this semester. The bright sparks who do the placement allocation have sent him to Mt Gravatt- an hour's bus ride away from Toowong, including interchanges. Thank heavens this is only one day a week, but he'll have to be at clinic in the morning, probably 8am, and make it back in time for his afternoon classes. One girl in his class was sent to Forest Lakes College, about an hour from her place, while another student was placed at a college that is literally around the corner from the first girl's house. Needless to say, the first girl is quite pissed off, as is Gam. A real monkeys-at-a-typewriter way of running things, the speech path people have.

Our new bluetongue is doing very well, I get out and see him/her every couple of days. It's either a very smart lizard or it's had experience with humans before, as it never tries to run away or hiss when I approach it. Instead, when it sees my hand holding a lump of food it rears up and opens its mouth to accept the food! Today the as-yet-unnamed lizard enjoyed pork scraps, a piece of banana and a large grasshopper. It's also seems quite happy to make a meal of our slugs. We'll have to think of a name. I like this lizard.

Gam and I are trying to get enough people together for the UQ Sport social 7-a-side competition on the weekend... that should be fun if we can get around 10 people to join up (we need subs because none of us are fit enough to run for 40 minutes!)... the price has increased markedly since the introduction of VSU (although if you believe that dickhead George Brandis our money was actually going to 'terrorists' such as the PLO, not to supporting sport). If we can get 10 people to join up it will cost about $60 per person; last time we had a side together it cost $27pp- and I think that was with fewer than 10 players. Fuck you, George Brandis.





Gam and I went for a walk about a week ago and took some photos of the new Green Bridge (now known as the Eleanor Schonell Bridge) from the uni to Dutton Park. Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman was opposed to this bridge when he came to office, and spent tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars on a second public consultation, trying to whip up opposition to the bridge, or at least have it changed from a pedestrian, cyclist and bus-only bridge to one that allowed cars. He failed, thank goodness, and no doubt shows up at every opportunity and tries to get his grinning-monkey visage plastered on everything associated with the bridge. Every time Gam and I walk on the bridge there are people walking across it just for the heck of it- just because it's so scenic and pretty. People walk their dogs, their toddlers... we even saw a group of old people doing some sight-seeing at the bridge last time we were there. I am positive that people wouldn't be so enthusiastic about walking across the bridge if they were being forced to breathe the fumes of thousands of vehicles while they did so; as it is, most of the non-students who walk the bridge are doing so for exercise and pleasure. If Campbell Newman had his way, he'd have spent the money on a tunnel. Wanker. I also snapped a picture (above) of a truck stacked with turf that parked underneath the pedestrian footpath onto the bridge.






I guess that's not all that's been going on, but I'll try and keep up at least one post a day. Still, have to try and maintain a kick-arse GPA so there'll be no doubts about whether I can do honours next year... doing honours means no more food science crap! Which means I have to keep my procrastination habit under control...