I somehow managed to hand in my thesis on time, and not be a loser. That is to say, I handed it in on Monday.
What a relief, more than anything. I'm just glad I'm done with it, and I somehow managed to get it down to a respectable word count of 19, 032.
So, a question that I naturally get asked by people is: what are you doing now that you have so much free time.
Well, on the night after handing the aforementioned document in, I went drinking with white people, being my Honours friends. It's not something I do very often, but it's fun in small doses. The funnest part is watching how people behave when they've had a bit to drink.
The not so fun part is having to contend with creepers that are out at 2 a.m. on a Monday night.
Next morning, after having slept about 3 and a half hours, we watched Cool Runnings at my friend Nonie's house (as you do). We then left for Brighton Beach, which was conveniently located a stone's throw away from Nonie's house.
Once there, we tanned, and Anna and I started ruminating about the future, life, the Holocaust, and humanity. (Yeah, Arts kids fo real, man.)
A good night, and an excellent morning. I've grown quite fond of a few of these Honours types, and I hope I keep in touch with them.
Afterwards, on the way home, I rear-ended a car. He ended up with a few scratches, while I was left with a towbar-shaped hole in my front.
I have no idea how it happened. I must've taken my eyes off the road at the vital moment, and he braked suddenly or something. It was pretty much at snail's pace.
Amazingly, he decided he didn't want to claim insurance for it, despite his initial rage. So I guess I'll just live with the towbar-shaped hole in the front of my car.
Oh, during all this time, my mum got sick, and the neighbour managed to run their car through our fence because they forgot to put the handbrake on.
Yesterday, my grandmother got hospitalised, so I've been in and out at couple of times visiting her, and picking up a little bit of the slack that mum leaves when she visits her.
And next week, it's my turn. My knee is undergoing surgery, which puts me out of action for the Coldplay gig and the annual roadtrip with my mates. Both frustrating. Extremely so, in the case of Coldplay. I hope I get a couple of visitors when I'm maimed. 9th of November. Mark it in your diaries, start visiting me from that date onwards. Please.
Today, I got a haircut, went to uni, ran into Meng, and gave my supervisor a bottle of the red wine in gratitude. Not a bad bottle either. For some reason, we always get into this philosophical discussions when we sit down together. Top supervisor, that Natalie Doyle.
So yeah. Despite being all done with uni, I've been fairly flat out doing this and that. Some of it good, some not so much.
Tomorrow, I'm off to buy stuff. Wish me luck.
Word of the Day: Theses
Showing posts with label beach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beach. Show all posts
Thursday, 1 November 2012
Monday, 25 June 2012
Leaving Paris + Bordeaux good times.
As I write this, we are in a car in Bordeaux, rocketing towards the biggest sand dune in Europe, and apparently a beach as well.
While I enjoyed my time in Paris, especially towards when we left the place, Bordeaux has been nothing short of amazing.
First, the Boyé family, with whom I have been staying, have welcomed me with, quite literally, hugs and kisses, and, somewhat contradictingly, with open arms. They have been amazing tour guides, hosts, and friends, and I could not have asked more of my stay in Bordeaux.
Second, the city itself is amazing. The architecture is beautiful, and amazingly unified, kind of like Bath in England. Matthieu has been kind enough to give me a tour of the place by both night and day. Very charming city.
The people also seem to be quite a bit friendlier than those in Paris, despite me being a minor minority here.
Visiting the countryside was interesting, despite it being more or less as expected - that is, full of wineries.
-------
So a bit of time-lapse magic, and I'm now on the train from Milan to Venice. A bit about that later.
Back to where we started, and then a bit after.
We scaled the epic sand dune, known as the Dune de Pilat. Going up was ok, because there were stairs. Going down to the other side was also ok, because it was just sliding down sand.
Coming back up the sandy side was absolute hell. Walking up a steep mountain of loose sand for what I think was 1km was just slightly exhausting. I was extremely pleasantly surprised when my legs didn't hurt one bit the day after. Must be the magic in the water.
The water that I fell into after wading in and tripping on a submerged rock.
Despite the physical pain of both the climb and the fall, a fun time was had, and it was beautiful there. An amazing experience that money probably can't buy.
While Matthieu and I trekked back up the dune, he imparted some of his many fun facts on me, which he had been doing during the whole stay, some of which include:
- French people enjoy breaking rules, and Germans will hate you for it;
- the two important elements in how good a wine is are the earth, and the year in which it was made;
- life without coffee is not really a life a all;
- people in Madagascar are very resourceful;
- the wealth of Bordeaux is built on both slavery and wine;
- colonialism was bad;
- despite his frequent disregard for timeliness, his children are puzzlingly continually concerned about the issue of punctuality.
Anyway. Enough of that. After trekking back up and down, we proceeded to Arcachon (driving, thankfully), a nice beachside town. We had dinner while watching the sunset, which was quite a perfect last night in Bordeaux.
So now I'm on the train to Venice, still missing Bordeaux.
I did pretty much nothing in Milano except visit the duomo, and managing to get myself lost. The duomo was nice, as was the hotel. Yeah, end commentary.
So Paris, my favourite places were the Louvre, and the Luxembourg Gardens. The Louvre was amazing for what was in it as well as the architecture. The Gardens were very serene, beautiful, and relatively people-free. I also quite liked Versailles, although I thought it would be bigger.
In Bordeaux, I'm fairly certain my favourite part was everything. Just sitting around and eating, shooting the breeze, sightseeing with The Best Tour Guides Ever, and experiencing how people actually lived in a non-Paris part of France.
I don't mind Paris, but I definitely love Bordeaux.
Word of the day: Dune
While I enjoyed my time in Paris, especially towards when we left the place, Bordeaux has been nothing short of amazing.
First, the Boyé family, with whom I have been staying, have welcomed me with, quite literally, hugs and kisses, and, somewhat contradictingly, with open arms. They have been amazing tour guides, hosts, and friends, and I could not have asked more of my stay in Bordeaux.
The Boyé family minus Marie and Simon. Great people (including the missing ones).
Second, the city itself is amazing. The architecture is beautiful, and amazingly unified, kind of like Bath in England. Matthieu has been kind enough to give me a tour of the place by both night and day. Very charming city.
By day.
By night.
The people also seem to be quite a bit friendlier than those in Paris, despite me being a minor minority here.
Visiting the countryside was interesting, despite it being more or less as expected - that is, full of wineries.
-------
So a bit of time-lapse magic, and I'm now on the train from Milan to Venice. A bit about that later.
Back to where we started, and then a bit after.
We scaled the epic sand dune, known as the Dune de Pilat. Going up was ok, because there were stairs. Going down to the other side was also ok, because it was just sliding down sand.
Coming back up the sandy side was absolute hell. Walking up a steep mountain of loose sand for what I think was 1km was just slightly exhausting. I was extremely pleasantly surprised when my legs didn't hurt one bit the day after. Must be the magic in the water.
The water that I fell into after wading in and tripping on a submerged rock.
Despite the physical pain of both the climb and the fall, a fun time was had, and it was beautiful there. An amazing experience that money probably can't buy.
Me on the top of Dune du Pilat.
While Matthieu and I trekked back up the dune, he imparted some of his many fun facts on me, which he had been doing during the whole stay, some of which include:
- French people enjoy breaking rules, and Germans will hate you for it;
- the two important elements in how good a wine is are the earth, and the year in which it was made;
- life without coffee is not really a life a all;
- people in Madagascar are very resourceful;
- the wealth of Bordeaux is built on both slavery and wine;
- colonialism was bad;
- despite his frequent disregard for timeliness, his children are puzzlingly continually concerned about the issue of punctuality.
Anyway. Enough of that. After trekking back up and down, we proceeded to Arcachon (driving, thankfully), a nice beachside town. We had dinner while watching the sunset, which was quite a perfect last night in Bordeaux.
So now I'm on the train to Venice, still missing Bordeaux.
I did pretty much nothing in Milano except visit the duomo, and managing to get myself lost. The duomo was nice, as was the hotel. Yeah, end commentary.
So Paris, my favourite places were the Louvre, and the Luxembourg Gardens. The Louvre was amazing for what was in it as well as the architecture. The Gardens were very serene, beautiful, and relatively people-free. I also quite liked Versailles, although I thought it would be bigger.
In Bordeaux, I'm fairly certain my favourite part was everything. Just sitting around and eating, shooting the breeze, sightseeing with The Best Tour Guides Ever, and experiencing how people actually lived in a non-Paris part of France.
I don't mind Paris, but I definitely love Bordeaux.
Word of the day: Dune
Thursday, 16 February 2012
Gold Coast Day One
As suggested by the title, the first day of our Gold Coast 'roadtrip' just concluded.
Good times have been had, with the promise of more to follow.
First impressions of this place are a bit mixed.
Architecturally (because that's everyone's primary concern), it's a little bit of a let down. Most of the buildings I've seen so far are a bit dilapidated. That might be a bit strong, but a lot of the buildings here have certainly seen better days.
Weather-wise, it's pretty humid, which was expected. However, became a bit milder towards the latter part of the day.
On to some not-so-first impressions!
The accommodation (Q1) is pretty swish. We're fortunate enough to be on the 47th floor, and our apartment comes with bonus awesome scenic views.
Anyway, activity-wise, most of the day was spent getting from my house to airport, airport to the other airport, other airport to Q1, finding lunch, spending a couple of hours running/sitting on the beach, chilling in the pool, eating dinner, and finishing off with a mad Monopoly Deal/apple cider/Sherlock/Tangled combo. If you thought that was going to be a short summary, you had another thing coming. Word.
That'll do for today. Maybe another one tomorrow if I can be stuffed.
Word of the Day: Impression
Good times have been had, with the promise of more to follow.
First impressions of this place are a bit mixed.
Architecturally (because that's everyone's primary concern), it's a little bit of a let down. Most of the buildings I've seen so far are a bit dilapidated. That might be a bit strong, but a lot of the buildings here have certainly seen better days.
Weather-wise, it's pretty humid, which was expected. However, became a bit milder towards the latter part of the day.
On to some not-so-first impressions!
The accommodation (Q1) is pretty swish. We're fortunate enough to be on the 47th floor, and our apartment comes with bonus awesome scenic views.
Anyway, activity-wise, most of the day was spent getting from my house to airport, airport to the other airport, other airport to Q1, finding lunch, spending a couple of hours running/sitting on the beach, chilling in the pool, eating dinner, and finishing off with a mad Monopoly Deal/apple cider/Sherlock/Tangled combo. If you thought that was going to be a short summary, you had another thing coming. Word.
That'll do for today. Maybe another one tomorrow if I can be stuffed.
Word of the Day: Impression
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
A beach of a promise
Not even a day after my resolution not to do stupid things that could jeopardise my safety, and there I was, a couple of hours ago, jeopardising my safety with not a care in the world.
We (being Chen, Kylie, Rui, Kanji, Simon, and Hayley + extras) went to Frankston beach around midday today. Which wasn't safety-endangering in and of itself. It was actually quite nice.
It was the part where Hayley + extras bailed, and after us leftovers had eaten dinner, where I felt that hanging around Frankston at night was maybe not such a good idea.
Ok, maybe I was exaggerating a bit. I mean, it's not like Frankston is New York in the 60s or anything. Or like Footscray at midnight. Or like the toilets at Melbourne Central. And on the upside, we had Cold Rock. First time for me. A tad overpriced, I thought, but worth it for novelty value.
So yeah, Simmo, Kanji and I trained it back to our respective homes, with me imparting my limited, albeit first-hand experience of Guangzhou upon Simmo, prepping him up for his trip there. Talk about safety-endangering.
Word of the Day: Safety
We (being Chen, Kylie, Rui, Kanji, Simon, and Hayley + extras) went to Frankston beach around midday today. Which wasn't safety-endangering in and of itself. It was actually quite nice.
It was the part where Hayley + extras bailed, and after us leftovers had eaten dinner, where I felt that hanging around Frankston at night was maybe not such a good idea.
Ok, maybe I was exaggerating a bit. I mean, it's not like Frankston is New York in the 60s or anything. Or like Footscray at midnight. Or like the toilets at Melbourne Central. And on the upside, we had Cold Rock. First time for me. A tad overpriced, I thought, but worth it for novelty value.
So yeah, Simmo, Kanji and I trained it back to our respective homes, with me imparting my limited, albeit first-hand experience of Guangzhou upon Simmo, prepping him up for his trip there. Talk about safety-endangering.
Word of the Day: Safety
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