Research project timeline

August 19: Contact ethics committee about change of student cohort
August 26: Revise questionnaire & interview questions
September 2-9: Prepare for questionnaire & interviews to be conducted
September 16: Observe The Campaign class in action & brief students on project
September 23: Administer questionnaire during class
September 30: Select interviewees
October 7: Observe The Campaign press conference
October 14: Conduct interviews

Secret to Bush’s success

I’ve finally found out what Bush’s secret is. “When people hear the President speak, frankly they think he’s really stupid. But what people don’t realize is that there is a genius behind the stupidity”. See for yourself.

The 3 Worst Things About Day Surgery

You might think that going into hospital at 6.45am for a ‘day procedure’ requiring general anaesthetic and swallowing a camera so someone can snip some bits of your stomach and oesophagous out for tests would be bad enough. Indeed you might be right. However I’ve discovered that the three worst things about day surgery aren’t really directly to do with surgery at all.

1. Trying to sleep the night before. For someone who has never been under a general in his life I think I was pretty cool calm and collected about the whole thing. But it was just like going on a big trip — you just don’t want to miss that plane. So even though I got to sleep by about 10.30pm I kept waking up… 4am, 4.30am, 5.00am, 5.15am, 5.35am… etc. etc. The most annoying thing? We got to the hospital ahead of time and were directed by a security guy up to the doctor’s suite where we waited for 30 mins. When nobody arrived we finally found out we had been told the wrong thing and had to go to Admissions, one level down. Thanks, security guy.

2. Getting your car towed. Yes, I was sleepy and distracted, and it was dark when we arrived. However, it was still pretty stupid to misread the sign on Victoria Parade. I think I only read the part where it said we could park for 2 hours from 9.30am. Not the part that said TOW AWAY ZONE 7am-9.30am. Our brand new car is now sitting in a pound somewhere in the city.

3. Daytime TV sucks. Man, I always forget just how much. When Oprah Winfrey and Judge Judy are the highlights of the day’s viewing, “you got problems”. Talk to the hand because the face ain’t listening.

Anyway the doc says everything looks normal in my gullet, so that’s a positive.

Changing tack

Today was disappointing in a way, but I think it could work out for the better. I set to work to get my research project back on track after taking a well earned break and illness. I phoned the Law school to find out about the usage of DRALE this semester. They weren’t sure last time I checked. Now it appears that it is not slated for use until the Summer Semester with the JD group. That’s going to be too late for me because I want to complete my interviews in the next couple of months. On the upside, I’ve been thinking about other projects I could use for a while now and The Campaign is a good second choice. I’m now setting about reshaping my interview questions to suit. I believe my research questions should still work with only a couple of word changes (the ones that relate to Law specifically). Next I will contact the lecturer and then the supes.

New Video

Check out this amazing new instructional video: How to dance like a white guy.

Back home

Well, we arrived home to a cold and rainy Melbourne yesterday evening and it’s been a lazy Sunday doing very little but recovering from the journey home. I’ll keep posting pictures from the rest of the trip in the next few days.

Unfortunately I have a lot to do. Last week the server hosting all my sites and my email was hacked badly. Slydog is moving everything over to a new host and hopefully we will have things back up and running soon, but in the meantime SwingTalk is down along with the MLX site and all the others. My email is only accessible through a web client right now and I’m not actually sure if all my mail will be there when it’s back up. Slightly scary.

Still, it’s good to be home. I didn’t actually miss much in Australia while I was away because I was having too much fun, but I did miss my cat, Mr Squiggle. He didn’t miss me at all, I’m sure. As long as he’s fed, he’s happy.

Friesland

We left Zeeland on Saturday morning and took the train to meet up with our friends Daan and Thomas at the house in Utrecht. That afternoon we drove 2 hours north to the province of Friesland, where Friesian cows, and the English language originate from. We stayed overnight at Thomas’ sister’s place in Leeuwarden. It was funny to think that we’d travelled the entire length of the country in less than a day. One thing I noticed about Leeuwarden was that the architecture was different. The churches did not have much decoration and things were in general very sombre and old fashioned.

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We headed back towards Utrecht on Sunday the 3rd of July along the Afsluitdijk, which is an amazing 30km long construction that keeps the north of Holland from being flooded and battered by the ocean. Below you can see a ship coming through one of the lochs in the dyke, and a couple of workers pushing a small rock into place to build the dyke up.

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Zeeland

Skip forward a few days now to Wednesday the 29th of July — the day we arrived in Zeeland, Holland. For those who don’t know, Zeeland is where New Zealand gets its name (spelt Nieuw Zeeland in Dutch). It’s the southernmost province of Holland and is famous for its beaches. We stayed with Lotte’s mum and grandma in a very small house (het strandhuisje) right on the sand at Vlissingen. Sort of like a bathing box with mod-cons. I really like this photo of the sunset over the beach. I snapped it from the front of the strandhuisje looking up along the beach just before 10pm. The days are very long right now, with twilight lasting until after 11pm.

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Here’s a shot of me right in front of the strandhuisje looking about as relaxed as I can be. I must say it probably looks a tiny bit warmer than it actually was there, but while the wind is bracing, when the sun shines it’s very pleasant. I can’t say it does much for the temperature of the water though. I went for one swim and it felt about as warm as freshly melted snow.

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One of the really fun things about this beach is that it’s actually right at the end of the river that leads to the port at Antwerpe, so about every 2 minutes you see a huge ship only about 1km off the beach. So spotting ships through the binoculars is one of the main passtimes.

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Our other main passtime was playing Yahtzee. Also in the picture are Lotte’s mum, dad and grandma (or in Dutch, Oma).

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Hameau du Lac

Here we have a few shots of us nearby the house in Hameau du Lac. On Saturday we decided to head down to the stream behind the house to see if we could have a swim. It was a bit too green for me to swim but Lotte and Dory had fun on the crocodile.

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Sunday was a funny day that sort of started with a minor disaster but finished in style. Just as Bil was taking our rental car around a tight corner he snagged some sharp bricks beside the road and popped a tyre. We had a brief pitstop before heading on to the beach.

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That night we had, I think, one of the best meals of the whole trip at a restaurant just near Sigean that was recommended to us by Lotte’s aunt Anna called the Hotel St. Anne. They did a special 3 course menu for us that included the beautiful fish dish below, all for 17 Euros each. We were the only customers in the place that night and I have no idea why because it was truly gourmet stuff. I believe it starts to get a lot busier in July and August though.

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Eus

After Castelnou we headed out for a drive to a lake. The plan was to have a swim, but about 5 minutes into our journey we were in the middle of a deluge that turned into a hailstorm. It was very dramatic. We waited by the side of the road until it cleared and then headed on our way. By the time we got to where we were going it was dry and we swam anyway (well, I didn’t, but I wasn’t feeling like it). Oh yeah, and we ate icecreams.

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On our way back, we found a tiny tiny village on a hilltop called Eus. You pronounce that “UH”. We laughed about that for hours. What would you say if someone asks where you live? “Uh… UH”. Anyway it was beautiful.

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