Confidence

People from school know me as being LOUD. I always used to be confident, talkative, flirtatious (ok well I'm still flirtatious) and out there. I would debate with people for the hell of it, I was totally open with my thoughts and opinions, I was comfortable talking with different people from all walks of life. So why the fuck am I so damned shy now!

I mean my yearbook comment (from Tors) was "leave it to Mim to be outrageous and proud of it - is that rope burn?" does that sound like the type of comment that would be written about a quiet reserved girl?

Even at the TPN dinner last year where I met most of my regular readers the general consensus was that I seemed to be much louder on my blog than I was in person. Actually as far as that's concerned I want to put the record straight. The loud Miriam who was talking about pole-dancing nurses and Angelina Jolie. That was the normal Miriam, not a drunk Miriam. Half the reason why I was so quiet to start off with was that Cam intimidates the hell out of me, and there was a huge group of new people for me to meet.

Anyway I think the key to this change is Colin. I've always been a little shy. But I warmed to people so fast that they'd never believe that I was shy when I told them. Now I've become so accustomed to clinging onto Colin for dear life during the initial introduction that I've never come out of my shell properly.

So I guess what I really need to do is to try to fend for myself a bit next time we're out. I don't want to fold in on myself entirely!

Brad's 21st

I had a costume party to attend on Friday. I ordered off ebay a lovely french-maids outfit for the occasion about a month ago. Unfortunately the costume is arriving on Monday! So, having arrived at home at 5.30pm and discovered that I didn't have a costume I had to find something suitable from my wardrobe.
I came up with a sort of punk look, with some ridiculously high (as in 10cm high) platform heeled boots which gave me stress-fractures and disaster was averted. Colin wore a set of racing leathers which looked cool even if they were really hot and uncomfortable to stand in.

Anyway here are some pictures to amuse yourself with. Unfortunately Colin got bored of taking pictures fairly early in the night so there aren't many of them.




Brad making a fabulous pirate


Dre dressed as brad... with brad


Colin, looking dashing in his fluorescent yellow and black racing leathers

Uni Marks

I am feeling rather justifiably smug (or at least I think so) today.

Machine Design (learn all about cogs, and gears, and levers etc) - 77% (Distinction)
Machine Dynamics 2 (force analysis of moving things) - 99%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (High Distinction)
Control and Automation (do some silly maths to figure out how to control stuff) - 65% (Credit)
Object-Oriented Programming in C++ (self-explanatory) - 85% (High Distinction)

Woot!!!

Apparently studying really does pay off :-)

The Things You Learn...

...When stuck in the middle of nowhere without Internet access.

Actually to be honest there was Internet access. I just wasn't willing to pay $25 a day for the privilege; but, back to the point. When you're stuck in the middle of nowhere without Internet access you start finding other ways to entertain yourself. Like women's magazines.

I really do recommend that any man who has a girlfriend/wife/mistress/all-of-the-above (you know who you are) makes sure he has a flick through of whichever magazines his various significant females read. I am convinced that 90% of strange female behaviour is caused by a lethal combination of spazzed out hormones and women's magazines.

Anyway, this months issue of Marie Claire has a fascinating and very deep article on... 'Sex and your stars... a six-month horoscope special'. Now I tend to view horoscopes with a certain level of amusement. They are, obviously a pile of garbage, but in terms of their personality descriptions they've got mine pretty much spot on, so its always amusing when they give their take on my sexual and or romantic tendencies.

So here is what I learned about myself from this months Marie Claire:

1. the most important sexual organ is the brain... (of course it is... why didn't I realise before)
   
2. I am spontaneous, liberated, unpredictable, and love to experiment
3. I give the impression of someone sexy, stimulating and erotically uninhibited
4. I drive men crazy with my air of amused detachment and elitist demeanour

(this is the best bit)

You need to feel connected to a kindred mind so you can be mesmerised by someone brilliant and articulate who seems to have all the answers. You usually don't discover until it's too late that he's all head and no heart... You also attract unfaithful types who take advantage of your trust.

The worrying thing is that I can think of a fair handful of people who fit that description perfectly.

So there you have it. Miriam according to Marie Claire.

And if you want my shiny piece of advice. If you're going to start a relationship with someone who has a history of affairs and one-night stands then just be honest about it and make it an open relationship. Its not usually the sex that upsets people but the dishonesty.

Exams, IBL, Costumes and Snow

Three of my four exams are over so I'm in a fairly good mood. The exam period has been pretty up and down. The first exam was fantastic and I'm pretty sure I got an HD, the second was Satan in exam form and if they don't normalise the marks the entire course will fail, and the third was pretty good although a bit long so I rushed through a couple of questions. That said at least I finished it. Most didn't. All I have left is a nice, friendly, open-book programming exam. Piece of cake :-)

In other news I got the IBL position I was after. They offered me the job right there in the interview. Didn't even have to sweat it out waiting to find out whether I was in. I'm going to be starting in a couple of weeks so soon I'll be a very busy girl.

I've been thinking about costumes lately (I know what you're thinking Cam and I have a perfectly good excuse - I'm going to a fancy dress party) and the real question is: would I make a better Sailor Moon, or French Maid. I already have access to the Sailor Moon costume although I'd need to hunt down a blond wig, and I'd need to get a French Maid outfit if I went for that but my hair won't be an issue. Choices, choices. I guess I could also probably russle up a pretty good Catwoman outfit if I really wanted but I don't really think its my style.

I'm going to be away in Bright for the long weekend so if anyone wants to contact me they'll have to do it by phone because I won't have internet access. I should have lots of spare time trying to avoid all the wives whilst the boys are gallivanting about the countryside on dirtbikes so I'll probably do a bit of photography while I'm there. Last year I took some pretty cool shots of a frozen lake but it was with a 2 mega-pixie cameraphone so they were all a bit on the grainy side.

The Story So Far...

I'm in a good mood with myself. As predicted, I all but finished my programming assignment tonight. All I have left is final commenting, UML diagram and cleanup etc. I also finished my cam design assignment which I find amusing even if no one else does. Particularly the bit where we have to constrain the jerk... actually that bit had the entire lecture in hysterics.

Lecturer: (and you have to imagine this with a really thick Indian accent)"...and then we have infinite jerking and that is unacceptable" puzzled look as everyone in the lecture theatre snorts their red-bull out their nose
Smartarse: "when is jerking a problem"
Lecturer: "on the next page"
Class: erupts in hysterics again. Eventually recovers until...
Lecturer: "what is so funny?"

On a completely different note I think my caffeine addiction has come to an ugly head. The other day I actually woke up with a caffeine withdrawal headache... at 7am... is that bad?

…And Everything Went Click

On Sunday night I was in a fairly bad mood. I'd just spent the entire weekend thinking about my programming assignment, reading the textbook and desperately trying to figure out what to do and I still didn't have a clue. But then on Monday, everything went click and suddenly it all made a whole lot of sense. So, last night I worked through all the hairy stuff and now all I need to do is finalize the user interface and it should all be more or less done by the time I go to bed. Isn't life great when you know what's going on?

Anyway the semester is drawing to a close. By this time next week I'll have finished my first exam and things are looking pretty good at the moment. I feel more prepared for exams than I've ever been and I'm hoping to clean up with straight distinctions. Can't guarantee it but it's certainly looking like a possibility. Still no word from IBL but Peter got a message last night which he needs to chase up. Hopefully I'll hear something this week. Otherwise I'll start to get worried.

Inheritance Makes My Brain Hurt

The second programming assignment of the year has rolled around and this time inheritance is the name of the game. Inheritance is one of those things that's lovely in theory but really hard to implement properly particularly when you get a 2 hr lecture and you're then expected to write a program involving inheritance, polymorphism and singleton classes without any satisfactory explanation of what it is in the first place. In any case I'm finally starting to get my head around it and once I confer with Peter the resident programming genius at uni I'll get stuck into it and start doing some proper coding.

In other news I reinstalled windows yesterday so now my computer is lovely and fast and ready for Office 2007 Ultimate, which I purchased for the very reasonable price of $25 for a 1 year subscription. The idea there is that if I have the same puter a year from now I'll spend the $50 to upgrade to perpetual and if I haven't I'm $50 better off. I know there has been some Office 2007 bashing going on recently but I have a really very slow computer and I haven't really noticed any major problems. So, to all of you geeks with your newfandangled 1GB RAM, STOP WHINEGING!!! I'm stuck with 512MB and you don't hear me complaining about the amount of time things take to load. Besides it's pretty… Surely you can forgive a little bit of lag for the prettiness?!?

Exams will be rolling by in just over a week; but fortunately I seem to be getting more, rather then less confidant about the exams as they approach. Every time I do tute questions these days I realize that I know way more about the subjects than I thought I did. I guess that whilst the exams are a lot closer to the semester this year than normal due to Swinburne abolishing SWOT VAC, I am also far more prepared than I might normally be at this stage. I've made a huge effort to try and force myself to pay attention this semester and clearly my new rather antisocial habit of sitting right up the front of the lectures away from my friends is starting to pay off.

I still haven't had word about IBL, but neither has anyone else so I'm not worried yet.

The End of Semester

The end of semester is approaching and it's been a busy one let me tell you! My first freak-out cry was in week two of semester and the workload hasn't really lightened up since. Now there's a week and a bit left before exams start and after that a short break and then... I actually have no idea what's happening after that, and its kinda exciting.

IBL (Industry Based Learning) is a program which gives students an opportunity to get a year of full time work experience halfway through their course. Officially I'm doing my IBL year starting July; however, I've only applied for one job. So, either I get the job of my dreams next semester and off to work I go, or I get 8 weeks holiday and then I'm back at uni for another semester. The way I figure it if I don't get the placement I want this year I can always do IBL starting January instead and cast a wider net then.

I've been totally uninspired with my writing recently. I guess its a combination of stress, tiredness and the constant feeling in the back of my mind that I have something more important to do. So I apologize for the drop in writing frequency and hopefully I'll think of something witty, imaginative or insightful to say soon.

A Year of Blogging

When I looked at the date the other day, I was rather startled to discover that it was April. Yes, I know a little behind the curveball; but nevertheless, In my state of confusion, you know 'where did the year go,' 'what has it amounted to' that sort of thing, I had a little look through my archives and discovered that today is my blogs one year anniversary. Hooray!

I started out blogging intending to post my wisdom (check), recipes?!? and random thoughts (double check). I really had no idea what blogging would amount to. I was only doing it because Cam and Rich made me feel guilty in their rant about how everyone should have a blog, contribution to society etc. Now, I'm involved in a community. A community which is full of intelligent, articulate and altogether wonderful people.

I'm more confident, I'm more aware of current affairs, my writing skills haven't diminished quite as much as they would have, had I not been writing all this time.

So thankyou to everyone for putting up with the less than consistent style and content of my writing. Thanks to everyone who commented, or gave me advice. Thanks particularly to Cam and Rich for getting me into this, and to Urbaer, Scienta, and everyone else who have dropped the occasional comment.

MODM

Its been a couple of days and the more cohesive post that I promised hasn't surfaced; however, Colin and I have been having a couple of chats about MODM (Melbourne Online Digital Media) and where it could go so there is potential for some form of useful contribution in the future.

Cam, was clearly going to a different party to the one I was... Or perhaps it's just that my poor mind (which I must admit is fairly suggestible) was so shocked by what was going on around me that it just blocked it out and made something else up to fill the gap.
btw Cam, Colin and I are not 'just bloggers', firstly Colin isn't a blogger at all; more importantly we have a couple of projects in the works, ready to get properly started as soon as this confounded university semester is finished.

The blogging is just an outlet for my otherwise completely unutilised writing skills which, interestingly, seem to be diminishing at rate which is inversely proportional to the frequency at which I read Douglas Adams. Who would have thought that everything I know about writing I learned from HHGG.

Back on topic, I think there is some real potential for a bit of useful networking, support, advice etc with this MODM community. I look forward to seeing where we take it in the future.

The Music That Moves Me (Classical Edition)

1. Elgar, Cello Concerto in E Minor - Jacqueline Du Pre.
   I started to play the cello when I was seven, and from the first moment I picked it up I had a love/hate relationship with it. I'd wanted to play the violin but when I walked into the Canberra School of Music with my mother to speak to the violin teacher she took one look at my hands and said "No, fingers are too long. Cello"
   However, I found that when I sat down to play the cello every bit of energy and passion I had to give poured out through the cello. I had a startling talent, but as with everything it doesn't amount for much when you don't put work into it and it was the first thing that I would push aside during my depressive stages. So now, at 20, I'm all talent, no skill. The cello is like an extension of my body, my playing is instinctual, I can move without effort, but I can't dance.
   
   Jacqueline Du Pre, was arguably the greatest cellist of all time. She was a passionate woman and you can hear that passion in every note she plays. Elgar's Cello Concerto in E Minor is possibly her best, certainly her most famous recording. I challenge you to listen to it without falling in love with the cello. I can barely listen to it without crying.
   
   
2. Vivaldi, "L'estro armonico" No. 10 (Concerto for Four Violins and a Cello)
   This is a piece which never fails to cheer me up. Its such a vibrant and exciting work. I had the pleasure of performing this during my HSC year with my string quartet and a couple of borrowed additional violinists. It's truly inspiring and should be on everyone's 'music for thinking' playlists.
   
   
3. Corelli, Concerto Grosso in G minor (Christmas Concerto)
   Again from my string quartet days. This was my favorite piece to perform. It has a fun and prominent cello part. I loved the fact that I got a chance to shine rather than just playing walking basses all the time. It brings back great memories; in fact, when I listen to it I usually end up closing my eyes and playing it in my head.
   
   
4. Chopin, Nocturne in E Minor, Op 72
   One of my favorite pieces to play on the piano. I don't have a piano in Melbourne and its the first time in my life that I've been without one. I miss it a lot. It was always the best outlet for any frustrations or sadness. I've been known to play an mp3 of this, close my eyes and play the imaginary piano on my desk... sad, I know!
   
   
5. Rachmaninoff, Prelude in C sharp Minor
   When I was a kid, after I'd go to bed my dad would play the piano. This was my favorite piece that he played. I'd often creep into the corridor to listen to it better. Dad's not really one to show his emotions but he plays the piano with passion and Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C sharp minor is a very passionate work.
   
   
6. Widor, Toccata from Organ Symphony no 5
   I've always loved the drama and grandiosity of the organ and this is the piece of music I most wanted to play. I learned the organ for a couple of years but I never got anywhere near good enough to play it. It's still my favorite organ work.
   
   
7. Satie, Gymnopedie 1
   The first piece I learned to play on the piano was Satie's Gymnopedie 1. Dad always used to play it and when I was around twelve I sat down at the piano and thought "I'll give it a go". When mum came home from work I proudly played her the first half of it. She called up to arrange piano lessons the next day.
   
   
8. Allegri, Miserere
   I have a long history with this work. I first learned the soprano solo for the Allegri Miserere when I was ten as an audition piece for Gondwana Voices, a choir comprised of 50 young singers from around Australia. Later, I sang it in a concert put together for a friend of my mother's who was dying of cancer, and then performed it at his funeral. It is an amazing work, the kind of music that sends shivers down your spine every time you listen to it.
   
   
9. Purcell, Funeral Music for Queen Mary
   If you haven't heard Purcell's, Funeral Music for Queen Mary, and in particular the march, then I recommend that you stop reading now and get yourself a copy. I've performed this a couple of times and having the brass section just in front of me playing the funeral march is just spectacular. When I first heard it I immediately thought that I wanted it to be played at my funeral. I now realize that its probably a little over the top for someone like me but I love it nevertheless.
   
   
10. Purcell, Dido and Aeneas
    I had the honor of playing Dido in a school production of Dido and Aeneas and it is a fantastic work. Originally written for a girls school of ballet and the performing arts, its based on the Aeneid and has all the drama you would expect from a work with such heritage.
    

I was going to try to put these in some kind of order but I can't find one. Jacqueline Du Pre's recording of Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor is definitely number one though. So I guess this is mostly a personalized idiots guide to classical music. A handful of classical works to check out that have my own personal seal of approval, whatever that's worth :-)

MODM Drinks

Just got home after the MODM drinks night. Had a fabulous time as I always seem to with the Cam, Urbaer, Scienta etc group. I'll post something more cohesive in the morning, but thanks to everybody and I wholeheartedly support any proposition for future MODM drinkies nights.

A Break

For the past week uni has been one late night frantically finishing an assignment after another. Fortunately (for a couple of weeks anyway) the worst of it is over. So I may actually be able to fit some blogging into my demanding schedule.

I've been trying to work out what the purpose of my blog is. At the moment its pretty much a series of opinion pieces strung together with a whole lot of minor updates to my life and lets be frank, my life isn't particularly interesting to anyone outside my immediate family and friendship group and I tend to live in the hope that no one in my family will google me.

I just can't think of anything specific I have to offer to the universe at the moment. I can think of stuff I might have to offer in the future but not right now. So I guess I will go on with using blogging as an outlet for my otherwise totally unutilised writing skills and hope that some pearls of wisdom emerge to help someone out.

The joy of bug killing

I am very happy to inform everyone that I have finally killed a really particularly annoying bug that was killing my programming assignment.

It was one of those bugs that turns up and bothers you just when you're starting to feel really pleased with yourself, and the stellar job you've done on the program so far. This particular bug decided to jump out at me and ruin my day just as I added the finishing touch to the assignment. The problem was the deceptively simple requirement that the program should have a nice little 'Would you like to enter another route (Y/N)' at the end. Yes ladies and gentlemen, all this particular part of the program had to do was ask for an input and start over if you indicated Y.

The problem lay in the fact that whilst the program ran through fine the first time it would skip the first input the second time around if you selected 'Y' (it exited fine if 'N'). I was, of course, programming in C++ and I fixed the problem by replacing cin.getline(restart, 2) with cin.getline(restart, 2, '\n') which (correct me if I'm wrong) is strictly speaking THE SAME THING!!! Anyway, problem solved, no suddenly empty inputs, program no longer chucking a skitz and crashing. Hooray!

To those who don't program I can't express to you how annoying it is to get to the end of a project and then have something really stupidly simple screw you up. Its sort of like winning a marathon only to be disqualified because you forgot how to walk when it came to the receiving your accolades bit. So having proven that walking is the same as running only slower I have fixed my problem and vastly improved my mood.

More importantly I have discovered that 'Mark Leung's Crazy Computer Bug' makes a surprisingly accurate reenactment of those bugs that sneak up on you when you least expect it... Only its never made me want to throw my computer out the window or cry.

What I (used to) do

As a special treat to everyone, and because I'm feeling nostalgic about my singing days, here is a recording of me singing the aria 'Ah Belinda, I am pressed' from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas.
Its a bit of a dodgy recording but its the best I have. Its taken off the DVD of a school production where I played Dido. I hope you like it :-)

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The wagon

I'm realising that its hard to get back into blogging when you stop for a while. I've made several starts over the past couple of weeks but haven't actually finished a blog post. I keep on feeling like I have nothing to say.

Anyway things have been fairly busy in this part of the world recently. I'm a week off halfway through my semester at uni and the workload is huge. I'm back into a proper programming subject again which I'm glad for. I almost would have liked to do a pure programming course but then all the IT subjects have their low points, for instance databases 101 (or its equivalent) which has a 60% fail rate simply because its boring as bat shit.

I seem to get a huge sense of satisfaction from programming. There's something about writing a whole lot of instructions, pressing play and having the computer do what you want it to which is really satisfying particularly if you had to think really hard and learn new stuff in order to do it.

I'm also enjoying Machine Dynamics 2 because I had my first test the other day and actually fully understood the material. Maths is fun when you get it and like pulling teeth when you don't.

Control and Automation is my least favorite subject. Its certainly the hardest but I'm starting to figure out what's happening there too. The main problem is lecturer headaches. She's lovely as a person but simply pisses me off with her teaching style!

Finally I have Machine Design which is a whole lot of fun. Its one of those subjects where you take all that stuff you've been learning for the past two years and actually apply it.

So that's the playing field at the moment. I'm hoping for a straight run of distinctions or higher which would make it my best semester so far but I may as well shoot for the stars :-)

The Shave

I'm pleasantly surprised by my bald look. I think it kinda suits me :-)

Colin loves it, Nay (my sister) thinks its 'not too bad' and Emma and David (Colin's kids) think its hilarious.

All in all I've raised $550. I'm hoping to raise some more over the next week so we'll see how things go. If you would like to sponsor me please click here.

World's Greatest Shave - Under a Week to Go

On Saturday I am shaving my head to raise money for the Leukemia Foundation. The Leukemia Foundation supports patients with leukemias, lymphomas, myeloma and other blood disorders.

If you would like to sponsor me you can do so by credit card by clicking here. Donations over $2 are tax deductible and it's a really good cause so dig deep!

I will of course be posting up pictures, videos etc for everyones amusement.

It pays to be observant

On Friday night I went to Swinburne's 'Welcome Back Party'. I headed home alone fairly early (11pm) by train. During my train journey I noticed that a 40ish man in a suit was staring at me quite a lot which creeped me out no end. I was even more creeped out when I got off the train at my station and he followed me off.

At this stage I was fairly scared but still thought that it was probably my imagination and coincidence. To be on the safe side however I called Colin and spoke loudly about being at the station and being home in 5 min, slowing down as I did so to force him ahead of me. He headed into the tunnel off the platform and turned left, so I turned right to the opposite side of the tracks. As I walked home down the road parallel to the train line I noticed someone standing on the other side of the tracks looking across at me through the fence. It was the same guy. So not my imagination after all.

Fortunately I was safe however I have no doubt that I wouldn't have had a chance of fighting him off had he surprised me from behind.

So the moral to the story is be observant, be aware of your environment, and if you think that somethings not right trust your instinct.