That's right... I'm writing this to you from a new laptop!! Okay, so I may have gone overboard with the excitedness about this new toy, but it's just my very (very) late birthday present (from the last two birthdays!), so I've been waiting a while for it. It's so cool... all HP and shiny and smooth to look at and use, and the best part? I actually LIKE typing on the keyboard!! I was so worried about that, because I hate laptop keyboards generally, but this one I'm really loving and wont have a problem with at all. It's silver. There are cool lights on it too and touch buttons and stuff. At the moment I'm only planning on using it for uni work and to take places, so am only transferring a select few items from my desktop (which I will still keep in action for a while... mostly to download things and play games etc). I've also been quite harsh in the music that I've transferred over... Only the best ones, or the ones I think I might want to listen to while on the go. I definitely wont be connecting my ipod to this computer until the very last day of my old one's existence in my room. I'm just excited, I guess! It'll wear off... eventually.
In other news... Easter has come and gone, and I've eaten lots of chocolate, and still have some left to go... It was a great weekend, the 4 days went on for ages, and I had some good times with my most favourite people. It is annoying though, when holidays like that make me feel like they can go on forever, and that life could always be that lazy and happy and not include work or other annoying things like that!
Anyway, should keep this post short, I'm feeling ill again from eating more honey baked ham Kettle chips... They're just so good! Mmm this laptop is all warm, it'll keep my hands nice and toasty when the cold weather really hits. Today was windy but no rain. I'm waiting for the rain.
Peace out.
Xox
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Needs Improvement
I'm not dealing with things very well this week. It's annoying because I'm not sure why that is. I think it's just that the holidays are looming, and I feel like I need the time at home to just chill and also to get everything back in order. Over the course of the term I've let things slide downhill, like readings and keeping up to date with uni stuff, and feeling on top of everything. But I think that as it's gone on, and the content is getting more involved, I've slowed down with understanding it all. Plus I totally write off the weekends (which, in my opinion, is fantastic), so sometimes haven't gotten myself organised for Mondays, which leaks into Tuesdays, and then the whole week seems like it's a big rush. I think it's also because there's another assignment due this week, which is proving difficult to understand and know what's relevant to write. I got my first assignment back yesterday, which I thought I hadn't done all that well in, but actually got 12/15 or 82%, so that was mildly encouraging. But once again I feel like I'm just getting a little snowed under.
Not to mention that lately I seem to explode at every little thing someone says to me at home... It's not giving me a good reputation around the house, since everyone's afraid I'm going to go off at them for making a little joke. Even I know that I'm overreacting, but it still comes out of me! I'm sure it's just related to the stress and fear of not having enough time to finish this assignment well, and the fact that I don't know what I should be doing doesn't help. I'm the sort of person who needs specific guidelines or be told the steps to be able to do something well! So when the question says to be creative and interpret it in your own way, I'm kinda left flailing! Wish I wasn't like that.
Hmm, I also wish that I wasn't always complaining! I know there are things to be looking forward to (they're the reason time seems to be going by at a snail's pace), but there's also uncertainties about those things too! I LIKE HAVING PLANS!!! But unfortunately, I always think of something to plan far too late to actually do something about it. Then I'm just left disappointed. Much like this stupid stimulus, which I'm almost certain now I wont be getting. The government are so tricky, wording the criteria so that everyone believes one thing, then when the time comes, they are told another that you'd need a doctorate in tricky government wording to have picked up on! Sneaky butt-faces.
Anyway, I should probably attempt to actually open the assignment file and pretend to do some work. Make myself feel better (or more likely, worse). Sorry this has been another depressing post, I'll try to have some positive ones soon!
Xox
Not to mention that lately I seem to explode at every little thing someone says to me at home... It's not giving me a good reputation around the house, since everyone's afraid I'm going to go off at them for making a little joke. Even I know that I'm overreacting, but it still comes out of me! I'm sure it's just related to the stress and fear of not having enough time to finish this assignment well, and the fact that I don't know what I should be doing doesn't help. I'm the sort of person who needs specific guidelines or be told the steps to be able to do something well! So when the question says to be creative and interpret it in your own way, I'm kinda left flailing! Wish I wasn't like that.
Hmm, I also wish that I wasn't always complaining! I know there are things to be looking forward to (they're the reason time seems to be going by at a snail's pace), but there's also uncertainties about those things too! I LIKE HAVING PLANS!!! But unfortunately, I always think of something to plan far too late to actually do something about it. Then I'm just left disappointed. Much like this stupid stimulus, which I'm almost certain now I wont be getting. The government are so tricky, wording the criteria so that everyone believes one thing, then when the time comes, they are told another that you'd need a doctorate in tricky government wording to have picked up on! Sneaky butt-faces.
Anyway, I should probably attempt to actually open the assignment file and pretend to do some work. Make myself feel better (or more likely, worse). Sorry this has been another depressing post, I'll try to have some positive ones soon!
Xox
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Procrastination
I'm avoiding an assignment.
It's only the second one of the year and I'm already sick of doing them! Actually that's not entirely true. I'm liking getting to think again, it's just a bit tricky trying to do something that I don't really know anything about. I'm supposed to be critiquing a journal article, and I've done the easy parts, and one of the hard parts. There's one hard part to go, but it's just hard when there's no direction to follow. I suppose I should have done the sensible thing and asked Alastair to read over my draft today, but he'd already read so many people's and I felt bad making him stay behind longer. Plus I hate having people read my work, especially when I'm sitting right next to them. It's fairly daunting! I think everyone's in the same boat though (would wanna be a big boat!!), which always makes me feel better. Oh well, I only have to write about 350 more words, and it can't be that hard to think of problems/gaps in the article!
In other news, the end of next week is Easter and the 4 day break! Which is doubly awesome because I have two more weeks off after that. Well, only one really, because the other is when we go on our field trip to Beechworth and the wine regions. That should be fun fun fun. And i'm hoping that the government aren't being sneaky when they say that the stimulus money is being delivered next monday. I can't wait to finally be able to buy something for myself that doesn't consist of food or petrol. Because that's about all I've been getting myself lately... Okay, occasionally there might be a random bit of chocolate in there somewhere, or some ice cream, but they aren't anything substantial and I want new things, dammit!! Plus I want to buy someone else some things! Birthday soon, anyone? Oh yes! That's going to be lots of fun, I've got a few cool ideas, although I'm cutting it fine, April totally sprang up on us! Pretty soon it'll be winter and I'll be thinking about skiing and snow and mountains and scarves and snuggling and the like. Why do lots of good things start with the letter S?
Snow.
Sand.
Sun.
Sea.
Snuggles.
Skiing.
Snowmen.
Snowballs (okay so i'm cheating with using the same word... but I say it still counts).
Spas.
Singing.
Summer.
Spring.
Stop this train.
Spongebob...
Haha okay I'll stop now.
I think my problem is that I can't really do any constructive work at night time... unless it's due the next day. There's just too many distractions around that I let myself be distracted by. Like someone's watching TV, so i'll just go out and have a little look, or i'll decide my ipod needs charging, and spend a while making a new playlist on iTunes, or I'll find facebook, or decide I can write much more on a blog, or i'll pretend to get hungry and i'll go and find some stupid food to eat, and figure that while I'm eating, I might as well watch the latest How I Met Your Mother. Then, before I know it, it's 9.30pm and I'm getting sleepy and all hopes of getting anything proper written is gone, because, of course, it'll be time for a shower, and then i'll be all snuggly and warm and just decide to hop into bed for an early night, and then repeat the whole process over again the next night! My only hope is to get the work done on Thursdays and Fridays, preferably in the morning, because I seem to be at my most workable then.
And so now, without even breaking a sweat (not that I do when I type normally, it's just a figure of speech), I've written double the amount here that I need to write to finish off this assignment!
It's ludicrous. And I will never change.
Nighty night!
It's only the second one of the year and I'm already sick of doing them! Actually that's not entirely true. I'm liking getting to think again, it's just a bit tricky trying to do something that I don't really know anything about. I'm supposed to be critiquing a journal article, and I've done the easy parts, and one of the hard parts. There's one hard part to go, but it's just hard when there's no direction to follow. I suppose I should have done the sensible thing and asked Alastair to read over my draft today, but he'd already read so many people's and I felt bad making him stay behind longer. Plus I hate having people read my work, especially when I'm sitting right next to them. It's fairly daunting! I think everyone's in the same boat though (would wanna be a big boat!!), which always makes me feel better. Oh well, I only have to write about 350 more words, and it can't be that hard to think of problems/gaps in the article!
In other news, the end of next week is Easter and the 4 day break! Which is doubly awesome because I have two more weeks off after that. Well, only one really, because the other is when we go on our field trip to Beechworth and the wine regions. That should be fun fun fun. And i'm hoping that the government aren't being sneaky when they say that the stimulus money is being delivered next monday. I can't wait to finally be able to buy something for myself that doesn't consist of food or petrol. Because that's about all I've been getting myself lately... Okay, occasionally there might be a random bit of chocolate in there somewhere, or some ice cream, but they aren't anything substantial and I want new things, dammit!! Plus I want to buy someone else some things! Birthday soon, anyone? Oh yes! That's going to be lots of fun, I've got a few cool ideas, although I'm cutting it fine, April totally sprang up on us! Pretty soon it'll be winter and I'll be thinking about skiing and snow and mountains and scarves and snuggling and the like. Why do lots of good things start with the letter S?
Snow.
Sand.
Sun.
Sea.
Snuggles.
Skiing.
Snowmen.
Snowballs (okay so i'm cheating with using the same word... but I say it still counts).
Spas.
Singing.
Summer.
Spring.
Stop this train.
Spongebob...
Haha okay I'll stop now.
I think my problem is that I can't really do any constructive work at night time... unless it's due the next day. There's just too many distractions around that I let myself be distracted by. Like someone's watching TV, so i'll just go out and have a little look, or i'll decide my ipod needs charging, and spend a while making a new playlist on iTunes, or I'll find facebook, or decide I can write much more on a blog, or i'll pretend to get hungry and i'll go and find some stupid food to eat, and figure that while I'm eating, I might as well watch the latest How I Met Your Mother. Then, before I know it, it's 9.30pm and I'm getting sleepy and all hopes of getting anything proper written is gone, because, of course, it'll be time for a shower, and then i'll be all snuggly and warm and just decide to hop into bed for an early night, and then repeat the whole process over again the next night! My only hope is to get the work done on Thursdays and Fridays, preferably in the morning, because I seem to be at my most workable then.
And so now, without even breaking a sweat (not that I do when I type normally, it's just a figure of speech), I've written double the amount here that I need to write to finish off this assignment!
It's ludicrous. And I will never change.
Nighty night!
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
TEX
So we've been asked to write informal journals of some sort, for one of the new units at uni - The Tourism Experience. It's not going to be read by anyone at the uni, but basically I think it's just for our own sake, to record our thought processes, and any important themes or issues we may have picked up on in the seminars.
I really liked today's one. It was on the anthropology of tourism, though I think anthropology in general really interests me... For anyone who doesn't know, anthropology literally means the study of mankind. Basically it's all about why people do the things they do, what motivates and influences their decisions etc. It's fascinating how there can be so many areas to study on the one person or people, and how in-depth anthropologists go just to find out a tiny detail that can help them understand the human race.
Some of the key issues today that we were asked to think about included the difference between a tourist and a traveller, as well as the difference between tourism and travel.
The way I thought of it was that a tourist generally wants to see one or two main sites or destinations when they journey somewhere, while a traveller wants to see everything along the way, and will keep travelling indefinitely. Someone else said that tourism is seen as the mass form of people moving from place to place, while travellers are more likely to be adventure seekers, and will want to visit places more 'off the beaten track'; likely to travel alone or in small groups, rather than sticking with the mass crowds that generate tourism. It's sort of hard to express what I'm thinking of in actual words, but I suppose I'd better get used to at least trying to do it effectively!
The first assessment task for the masters course is due on Monday. It's already so different, with the amount of reading needed to be done before even starting to search for information relevant to the actual topic. It's also very much left to us to sort of make our own judgement on a lot of things, which scares me a little as I generally need a bit of guidance to help me on my way. But it's something else to learn, I guess.
I'm not sure if this is what Gary wanted when he said to keep a journal, but it'll do for now. I probably will appreciate that I've done this, at the end of the year, so I can look back and see how far I've come (if I last the whole time, that is!)
And now, off to bed.
I really liked today's one. It was on the anthropology of tourism, though I think anthropology in general really interests me... For anyone who doesn't know, anthropology literally means the study of mankind. Basically it's all about why people do the things they do, what motivates and influences their decisions etc. It's fascinating how there can be so many areas to study on the one person or people, and how in-depth anthropologists go just to find out a tiny detail that can help them understand the human race.
Some of the key issues today that we were asked to think about included the difference between a tourist and a traveller, as well as the difference between tourism and travel.
The way I thought of it was that a tourist generally wants to see one or two main sites or destinations when they journey somewhere, while a traveller wants to see everything along the way, and will keep travelling indefinitely. Someone else said that tourism is seen as the mass form of people moving from place to place, while travellers are more likely to be adventure seekers, and will want to visit places more 'off the beaten track'; likely to travel alone or in small groups, rather than sticking with the mass crowds that generate tourism. It's sort of hard to express what I'm thinking of in actual words, but I suppose I'd better get used to at least trying to do it effectively!
The first assessment task for the masters course is due on Monday. It's already so different, with the amount of reading needed to be done before even starting to search for information relevant to the actual topic. It's also very much left to us to sort of make our own judgement on a lot of things, which scares me a little as I generally need a bit of guidance to help me on my way. But it's something else to learn, I guess.
I'm not sure if this is what Gary wanted when he said to keep a journal, but it'll do for now. I probably will appreciate that I've done this, at the end of the year, so I can look back and see how far I've come (if I last the whole time, that is!)
And now, off to bed.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Mmmm
I love Sara Lee's 'Rocky Road Overload' ice cream. I think it may even be my favourite ice cream ever. And I've had a lot of ice cream in my time. The best part is the raspberry swirls that you occasionally come across... They're so rare, but I think that's why they're the best part, because you never know when you'll get a tiny hit of it!
Wow, I just realised that this thing saves itself as it goes along... Now that's handy. Too many times have I written something hugely long, like an email on facebook, only to accidentally press the back button somehow, before posting it and losing the entire thing. And we all know that the second attempt (if you can even be bothered writing again) is never quite as funny or brilliant as the first.
So here I am, writing a blog again. In no way is this a medium to get back at anyone, and I'm not even really copying anything that might already exist, because I've really always wanted to get back into blog writing. I think I'll use this as a way of documenting the year, since it's rather important, as opposed to writing in a diary or something. Plus I figure if I don't post the link anywhere, then it's pretty much like writing in a diary anyway, as no one will know it exists! Well, maybe someone. But that's only because I'll show him.
I've always said it, but I like typing. I especially like typing in this little text box, the default font is lovely. Hehe... lovely. Well, I can tell that I'm going to be good friends with this outlet, and I hope I have time to contribute effectively over the next few months. It's going to be full-on, that's for sure. We even used some coloured pencils and did some drawings in one of our classes today! Who's ever heard of doing colouring during a masters unit?! It was fun though. Tomorrow is the class I think I'm most looking forward to. It's going to be really hard, mostly because of the standard the lecturers expect from us, but I hope that the content is interesting enough to keep me excited about trying that little bit harder. I want to be good at something, and I hope I don't let myself down.
Anyway, must hit the hay... Getting up before 8 is tricky when I've been on holidays for the past 4 months, and used to sleeping in til at least 10! But I'm glad I get to do something with my days again, and am looking forward to the routine.
Good to meet you, Mr. Blog. I think we can be great buddies.
Til next time... xox
Wow, I just realised that this thing saves itself as it goes along... Now that's handy. Too many times have I written something hugely long, like an email on facebook, only to accidentally press the back button somehow, before posting it and losing the entire thing. And we all know that the second attempt (if you can even be bothered writing again) is never quite as funny or brilliant as the first.
So here I am, writing a blog again. In no way is this a medium to get back at anyone, and I'm not even really copying anything that might already exist, because I've really always wanted to get back into blog writing. I think I'll use this as a way of documenting the year, since it's rather important, as opposed to writing in a diary or something. Plus I figure if I don't post the link anywhere, then it's pretty much like writing in a diary anyway, as no one will know it exists! Well, maybe someone. But that's only because I'll show him.
I've always said it, but I like typing. I especially like typing in this little text box, the default font is lovely. Hehe... lovely. Well, I can tell that I'm going to be good friends with this outlet, and I hope I have time to contribute effectively over the next few months. It's going to be full-on, that's for sure. We even used some coloured pencils and did some drawings in one of our classes today! Who's ever heard of doing colouring during a masters unit?! It was fun though. Tomorrow is the class I think I'm most looking forward to. It's going to be really hard, mostly because of the standard the lecturers expect from us, but I hope that the content is interesting enough to keep me excited about trying that little bit harder. I want to be good at something, and I hope I don't let myself down.
Anyway, must hit the hay... Getting up before 8 is tricky when I've been on holidays for the past 4 months, and used to sleeping in til at least 10! But I'm glad I get to do something with my days again, and am looking forward to the routine.
Good to meet you, Mr. Blog. I think we can be great buddies.
Til next time... xox
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)