Standing Up.

It's 9.30pm, and I'm using a library computer standing up.

How exotic*.

(*Author is nearing the end of the semester, and is probably going nuts.)

Ricky May is Dead.

Last week this week, another year nearing an end. Two assignments and a three exams to go, and I am completely bereft of creative thought.

This is going to get a lot worse before it'll get any better.

A Symphony in Two Parts.

Five minutes prior to yesterday's presentation I met my partner for the first time. We had been in touch over the phone a couple of time since our tutor has hooked us up together some two months prior. I broke my cardinal rule of not having cased out the presentation beforehand and then staking a claim on my role in it. This left my partner to pick whatever he wanted and then leave me the rest, which he did - in spades.

We had to discuss a particular managment scenario and relate it to the subject matter of that week's chapter of reading. Naturally, my slumbering ways left him discussing the chapter's key themes, and me actually having to present 5 to 6 minutes of verbal window dressing that actually answered the questions we were required to answer.

This 'presentation' was worth 20% of our mark in the subject, and it was a solid gold 20%, with my partner managing to basically give a presentation loosely based on the lecture we'd had that week, right down to snatching the over heads from that lecture and reusing them for his 5 minutes of monotone rambling.

Rambling that was eerily reminiscent of this cracking soundbite from the opening scenes of Napoleon Dynamite:

Last week, Japanese scientists explaced- placed explosive detonators at the bottom of Lake Loch Ness to blow Nessie out of the water. Sir Curt Godfrey of the Nessie Alliance summoned the help of Scotland's local wizards to cast a protective spell over the lake and it's local residents and all those who seek for the peaceful existence of our underwater ally.

This of course left me to answer the question, and actually make a presentation that emitted even the faintest signals that we'd had three or four minutes of cognitive thought amongst us for the past two months.

The result was 15/20 and me sleeping most of the afternoon and evening.

Plea Bargain

"I don't know what you're expecting tomorrow, but I just want to get in there, get 15/20 and get out."

I've never met my presentation partner for today before, but I already like his style.

his campfire flickering, on the landscape

We're in the final sprint towards the line here, and I have a couple of assignments to hand in and three exams to sit.

How exciting. None of this allows for the fact that I have three hundred other things happening at the same time.

I'm the perpetual juggler, trying to keep everything in the air. (I reserve the right to wear emo glasses and refer to my troubles at any time, beware.) I've always had lots on my plate, and for some insane, self inflicted reason, lately my plate is full, it's over flowing, it's cascading over the edges.

University should always be my first priority, it's the most expensive thing I have ever been involved in, and I'm going to be saddled with the debt of my tardiness, slackness, and poor decision making for years. University has never been my first priority, and despite the fact that it should be, it wont be for the next few weeks either.

I'll just scramble around ticking assignments off the list in my spare time.

And I'll cry if I want to, cry if I want to.

From some other day's Age:

Education Minister Brendan Nelson has conceded he may have to postpone the controversial changes (VSU legislation) because the legislation may not be passed in time for the 2006 academic year.

Awww.... BRENDAN! Sucks to be you buddy, imagine having your cherished ideological Liberal baby bumped off the dance sheet because the boss needs to get his unquestionably fair workplace relations laws through parliament as early as possible in the electoral cycle.

Imagine having a former accounting student standing the way of your beloved holy grail policy passing parliament, when and if it finally gets there.

That's totally bogus!

Melbourne University, which stands to lose $12.7 million in compulsory fees, has earmarked $6 million for the services next year.

That gives you some idea how much VSU will screw the delivery of services in universities.

Kerryn Phelps could totally do the job better.

Gary From The Block

(The Gary Chronicles I II III IV)

Gary, complete with leather jacket and matching slacks, settled down next to me at a lecture earlier this semester. In typical fashion, we got to talking about Gary, and his lady troubles.

Gary's long term ex had been a pretty asian girl called Nicole, and Gary talked about how he was basically over her, and although it was a shame how things ended, he was pleased to have moved on. One of the ways Gary had moved on was to go on a date with another asian girl. I'll let Gary and his crisp Indian accent take it from here...

"I'm a bit hesitant about seeing anyone again, but I had decided to do the right thing and get out and meet girls again, so I invite this girl in one of my tutes to go out on a date.

"I say to her that I will meet her at the Box Hill station.

"I get there, and well, there are lots of asian girls there. Um... I couldn't recognise which one was her. There were a few that could have been her, but I wasn't sure which was her.

"So I am like panicking, I'm way out of my depth, I still couldn't work out which one was her. So I called her, said I was feeling sick, and asked her to meet me at a particular spot.

"I decided to not see her again after that."

I'm in love.

(from Darpism.)

Meeting Agenda: Sweet FA

Our group met last Wednesday - actually it was the Wednesday before last. In the midst of going about the million other things I do, none of which are ever discussed here, the week before last was particularly busy. Legitimately busy, not 'I couldn't be bothered going to my friends/workmates/sister's partners party/get together/engagement/housewarming/bar be que because I am busy' busy - I meant I was busy, I had deadlines and turn around times, and things that had to be done.

The thing I hate most about group work (yeah you better believe I am blogging about gawd damn group work again) is the lame pretension that passes for commitment to the task at hand. Lame meetings, lame meetings that could be conducted over a phone, lame unproductive shitbag meetings. The three post 9am morning hours of the Wednesday before last were spent at work cursing to a work-mate about the intense level of annoyance that exists just below my outer surface (a surface constructed entirely of spite) with regards to stupid meetings.

To me it makes approximately zero sense to drive an hour, to sit out the front of a Library and look at each other and say, "You know what, I'm... yeah" while trying to hide the extent of nothing you have done to contribute to the assignment so far. It makes no sense when you can guarantee that two of the five members of the group won't be there. I haven't fucking met two of the members of my group yet (one of whom was described as a 'space cadet' by one of the attending members) - we hand the fucking assignment in next week. Obviously the have yet to be 'rostered' on at the same lame meeting yet. Horse Shit.

The hearty level of cussing in the above paragraphs probably doesn't reflect the true level of couldn't-give-a-fuckedness I have about whether or not other group members show up. I really couldn't care, it's just that them not being there underlines how pointless being there is. In the end, we resolved to, against better judgement, set an artificial deadline for handing out work up to the organiser (see also: masochist).

We decided to make last Friday the day we would send through any sections we had finished to the poor bastard who threw himself upon the poisoned chalice of collating the assignment. You would not believe it, the sort of bullshit I ordinarily leave till the very last minute, got emailed through completed to the gimp on Friday. I'm not entirely sure what happened, but the salivating thought of not having to spend the last two days before the assignment is due in constant contact with a group of people hitched together by one assignment, 1500 words of killer, 3500 words of filler, and three dozen excuses for not having completed work - probably spurred me to get it done in advance.


(Enny - 'The character Kerouac describes is listlessly floating through the ether of a mid 1950's serviceman shack community life.' I love the word ether - I choose to tag no one.)