March, 2004

So i get a little stressed every now and then.. about money and uni stuff and other stuff in general… Ive realised the last few days that being at uni and worrying about it really drains me… like if i sit at uni till 5pm each day i end up coming home and being unsociable and grumpy…
So i tested a theory today – left uni early… yup.. just left and came home early. Now im sitting listening to music and doing work and feeling good.. looking forward to melanie coming home.

Dunno what it is about uni, its good in the mornings and stuff but i think i get distracted in the arvo and my mind starts to wander and i end up surfing the web and doing nothing which jsut makes me tired…

so bleh… the moral to the story is… nothing… im dribbling cause i feel happy and feel like typeing!

Submit my wwdc application tomorrow! Adsl should be hoocked up next week! and i get paid on thursday

Soooo, working on writing up stuff for my thesis… its slow going thats for sure.
Been looking at jobs around the place and sending off my new sleek resume. I think its a lot betetr then before, mainly because its only 1 page and only lists the important things. I figure its gotta be simple and striaght to the point otherwise the people looking wont bother looking at it at all…

Got the special edition of UT 2004 on friday, apparently there is only abut 150 of them in australia… Came with a cool headset which in itself retails for around $40. Havnt played it much yet though.

I applied for ADSL the other day too – well when i say applied, i mean i got them to start checking the line and stuff to see if i can get it. I figured out i should be able to fit it into my expenses which is good, plus it will be really handy to have it at home now that ive got a few web contracts. So yeah, hopefully that comes through alright and im not on that silly paar gain lines stuff that telstra got in toruble for a few years ago…

Went and saw the new Adam Sandler movie – 50 first dates. It was actually pretty good, had a bit of a laugh in it.

Gotta go see the butterfly effect at some stage. Ill probably go it alone cause melanie isnt a big fan of those sort of movies.

My powerbook has started wobbling again… *sigh* i really dont know if ill bother taking it back, i guess i should cause its dodgy as… hrmpppphhh

oh well im done for now.

The whole music industry is going crazy from all those popstars, american idol type shows… they are making people who cant sing think they have a hope of getting a record deal.. and this doesnt help:

If you have itunes installed go and listen to the previews of his songs here:
itunes music store

To be honest – he sounds terrible… theres no easier way to say it, and i think the fact that he does sound terible is what will make people buy this (or download it somewhere)

I guess it comes back to ‘rooting for the underdog’, even if the underdog actually does sing like a howling dog.

After saying all that i will probably download his songs somewhere, mainly cause i find it damn funny – im always up for a good laugh.

Theres a good article over at AskMen.com about Communication Problems

I like this excert:

It still appears that these differences in communication styles are hard-wired into the male and female brain by nature — and it would be easy to just shrug and say, “Vive la difference.”

But the problem is, we live in an extremely sexist society — biased toward women. Women constantly blame men for their masculinity, punish them for thinking like men, and scorn them for failing to adopt the female style of communication.

They castigate our gender for not being able to express emotions (yet hypocritically ridicule men as weak when they do). They lionize relationship gurus who instruct men to surrender their masculinity and cater to women.

They condemn the male gender by promoting the female communication style as superior to men’s. They even force men to attend sensitivity courses to learn how to think and communicate more like women.

and this:

But men aren’t supposed to be women. They’re not supposed to act like women or think like women. Men talk to give information or report about facts — they are logical and goal-oriented. They don’t think with their hormones. They are not irrational, emotion-based, indirect, or hysterical. They have to communicate their wants and needs directly or nothing will ever get accomplished.

The point is: men can communicate. And they do it quite clearly.

But from the male point of view, it’s women who can’t communicate. So does all this mean that the sexes are doomed forever to be separated by a vast gulf of misunderstanding? Not necessarily so.

But first women have to stop expecting us to communicate like women. They have to stop scorning us for not being like women. Only when they learn to comprehend and accept the inherent differences in communication styles, can we both be able meet on a middle ground of understanding.

In general id probably agree, of course there are always those excepetions to the rule

M is for maths – something she likes,
E is for everything she does that is nice.
L is for the love i feel when she grins,
A is for my attention that makes her spin.
N is for nose – its pudgy and cute,
I is for innocence – a whole lot to boot.
E is for eyes that sparkle and shine,
Melanie’s her name and i know that shes mine.

So im looking at getting ADSL installed at home. Cost around $80 a month but i think i can afford that. Would also have to get an ADSL modem of coruse but thats no biggie.

Also think ill subscribe to the computer magazines i usually buy, save like 40% on the cover price! and it gets sent to my door… neato.

Phd is sloooowwwww, *sigh* had a sore head today which didnt help.

Bleh – this is boring. I need to work on a site for apps as well..

Spent most of the weekend installing a new HD – which of course includes repartitioning, reinstalling XP etc etc.
During this i realised another reason i like macs so much. It took me the whole weekend configure everything and set it up. I had numerous problems from the drive not being recognised by xp (even though it showed up in the BIOS), to the partition table stuffing up etc. I hate how the windows updates have to be downloaded evry time, why cant they let you download an updater that you can burn to a cd and run later? nahhh thats too easy, instead you have to logon to the internet and download them all – which would be ok i guess with ADSL, but with a dial up modem its just a pain.

Anyhoo… its all going now, ive got more space and XP is behaving itself for the time being. *sigh* The more i use my laptop and G4 at uni, the more my PC computer just becomes a games machine.

bleh

Feeling crummy today – dunno why…

Got my confimation of candiature coming up soon, gotta get my butt into gear and do it. Have to do some documents including a literature review and stuff, and also a talk… bleh… joy.

Im spending a lot of time lately sitting at uni doing nothing, nothing as in doing other things instead of the work im meant to be doing. Procrastinating i guess… its driving me nuts… Its jsut hard to get into gear, i could make up a bunch of excuses, but really theres no point, ive just gotta do it. (wow thats gotta be a record for the most amount of commas in a sentence)

So yeah, thats what i gotta do. Might have to just force myself to do it. Might stay at home a few days a week without having the distraction of email / internet etc etc, see how that goes. dunno.

Got paid – thats good. Paying rego put me behind a bit – i paid a full year to get it out of the way. The next few pays though should start putting me ahead hopefully. Also go the webpage contract to do, that will be good. Gunna get myself some new glasses then as well.

righto, enough of this… time to read… looks like it might storm.

Im now a legal regsitered user of LaunchBar. I used to use a ‘copy’ of it a while ago but havnt installed it lately cause i felt bad for not buying it

So today i lashed out and spent the $20 or so for a license. Money well spent, its a brilliant app.

On a whim i bought Rock Star today from freshly squeezed software. Dunno why really.. guess i just wanted another distraction :S..

Anyway, its not too bad, pretty damn good actually. Just gotta work on my high score now. Ill add the high score code to my blog eventually as well.

On a side note – ‘fosheezy’ is in limited beta testing.. its getting close…

We had pizza for lunch today, and look what was baked into it…

Click the pictures for a bigger picture..

Yup, a little fly.. we are lucky though, its only small and the oven would have baked him fast – so he didnt get time to eat much…

pizza! yum!

Found this old email question thing from Mandy that ive been meaning to fill out and blog… so here it goes.

1. WHAT IS YOUR FULL NAME

Brett William Leslie Brooks – I should be a king

2. WHAT COLOUR PANTS ARE YOU WEARING?

Blue boxer shorts

3. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?

Nothing – last thing was from my ‘High rated’ iTunes list

4. WHAT ARE THE LAST 4 DIGITS OF YOUR PHONE NUMBER?

2312

5. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE?

Sandwich with salami and home made potato salad – thanks to melanie.

6. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOUR WOULD YOU BE?

Blue

7. LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?

Mum

8. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX?

Eyes, legs, chest… im a boy sheesh what a stupid question..

9. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT YOU THIS?

Of course – havnt seen ehr since leaving school though

10. HOW ARE YOU TODAY?

good – got lots done, and managed to fit in some game playing

11. FAVOURITE DRINK?

Coke, Water

12. FAVOURITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK?

None – i dont drink alcoholic drinks

13. FAVOURITE SPORTS?

To play – hrmmm – thats tough… anything, but i dont play sport much at all
To watch – anything when im in the mood to sit and vege out

14. HAIR COLOUR?

Black

15. EYE COLOUR?

Brown

16. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?

Nope. Tried em once, didnt agree with me, should try em again…

17. SIBLINGS AND THEIR AGES?

2 sisters, 26 & 22

18. FAVOURITE MONTH?

November – my birthday month! or that crazy month in Australia has heaps of public holidays.

19. FAVOURITE FOOD?

Hungry Jacks – Bacon Deluxe Burgers
Mongolian grill i had in american was awesome as well… none of that in Rocky though.

20. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?

Mask – old movie with Cher, got it cheap at the video easy dvd sale

21. FAVOURITE DAY OF THE YEAR?

Nov 21st!

22. ARE YOU TOO SHY TO ASK SOMEONE OUT?

Ummmm, id say yeah used to be, these days hrmm probably not… dunno *shrugs*

23. SUMMER OR WINTER?

Winter – can alweays get warm, Summer in rocky is a nightmare even with aircon.

24. HUGS OR KISSES?

Kisses… soft light ones

25. RELATIONSHIPS OR ONE NIGHT STANDS

Relationships…. not exactly a one night stand person

26. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA?

Chocolate fosho!, vanilla malt milk is good though!

27. DO YOU WANT YOUR FRIENDS TO WRITE BACK?

Bah, i didnt send it to anyone… maybe people can leave comments on my blog

28. WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?

Melanie? She just said she was bored…

29. WHO IS LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND?

N/A

30. LIVING ARRANGEMENTS?

3 bedroom flat

31. READING?

Lord of the rings
Living without procrastination
Numerous uni research papers
Cocoa books

Lots! i have lots of books going at the same time.

32. WHAT’S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?

Dont usually use a mousepad with my optical mouse. Melanie did make me the best mousepad in the world though

33. WHAT DID YOU DO LAST NIGHT?

Tried to get lancraft working to play warcraft 3 with a friend over the internet – failed… *sigh* Did stuff with melanie, ummm read stuff, lots.

34. FAVOURITE SMELLS?

Rain, musky girls body spray, the cream melanie uses, fresh cut grass, ummmm that will do

35. CAN YOU TOUCH YOUR NOSE WITH YOUR TONGUE?

Nup

36. WHAT INSPIRES YOU?

People, places, events.

37. BUTTERED, PLAIN, OR SALTED POPCORN?

buttered and a little salt – too much salt is nasty.

38. FAVOURITE CAR.

That i own – mah mazda 626
That i drool over – mazda rx8, mazda 6

*zoom zoom*

39. FAVOURITE FLOWER?

Bright colorful ones.

40. HOW MANY KEYS ON YOUR KEY RING?

Three on my car set, lots on the flat set.

41. CAN YOU JUGGLE?

2 balls with one hand.

Whew done… yay.

So im polishing up my resume/cv and have come upon a dilemma…

One thing ive noticed is the different meanings. Seems in the US, resume and cv are two different documents. The resume being 1 page max and giving a brief overview and the CV being pages long and detailed in depth the persons education / past jobs etc.

Whereas over here, resume and cv are used interchangeably. I spoke with the careers dude at the uni here and he said nowadays both terms are used interchangeably, resume = cv, cv = resume. He said that the average student resume is around 4-6 pages long and there is no way you could fit the information on one page. I queried him about employers and if it is more beneficial to have a short 1 page document or not and he said no. He even told me that employers actually will read thousands of 4-6 page documents when people apply for jobs.

Seems silly to me, as an employer if I had the option to read a 1 page document compared to a 6 page document I know which one I would read. Wouldn’t employers just shuffle through the documents and pick out the ones they like and then ask for an interview / cv? That’s the impression I got from my last job. Maybe im wrong…

Anyway, i now have a 1 page resume. woohoo

Well my site has moved to a new server, and all is now good. took a while for the DNS entries to propergate through, but ya get that.

Been reading up on my research topic, its getting interesting.

Also updating my resume so its not as plain and bland and boring.

thats it for now

Hungry Jacks accepts out of date coupons! Yup! Its true! Melanie saw their little sign when we where in there a while ago, so today we tried it out.

I had a coupon for 2 x bacon deluxe burgers for $4.25 – expired jan 2002, and also a coupon for a cheeseburger + fries for $1.50.

They accepted both! So now ive got to find all my out of date coupons! I knew there was a good reason to keep them and not throw then away. Its also a good thing i didnt clean out my car console cause theres no way id still have that 2002 coupon if i did!

So i dont really have a category to put cool stuff i read on the web under – so it goes in general

* Apparently the old ‘an asteroid hit the earth and killed all the dinosaurs’ theory may be wrong

* Tossing a coin isnt as unbaised and fair as everyone seems to think. That is pretty interesting and mathy – i like this quote

During World War II, South African mathematician John Kerrich carried out 10,000 coin tosses while interned in a German prison camp. However, he didn’t record which side the coin started on, so he couldn’t have discovered the kind of bias the new analysis brings out.

Sounds like the book ive got on a symplified maths technique that was developed by a mathematician during the war while he was in a concentration camp.

* For all you conspiracy theory people out there, this article talks about some dude who was setting of shop detectors from his wad of new american $20 bills which apparently have some kind of ‘chip’ inside them. Soooo to destroy the chip he microwaves the $1000 USD worth of ntoes and they all burn… ha ha Wonder what the bank will say when he tries to exchange $1000 worth of notes that are all burnt in the same place…

We will now be wrapping all of our larger bills in foil on a regular basis.

Hey all,

Ok this is the second attempt.. i just typed for about 20 minutes then the
damm thing crashed on me so i am a little aggitated by the whole thing at
the moment..

So we have started the tour…. we on on with a group of 9 people 4 aussies,
canadian guy, english guy, irish girl, scottish girl and a girl from the
states ( that reminds me of Mel….My brothers Girlfriend ).

Day 1
we left capetown and headed to citrusdal…. this is only a small campsite
and at first glance really gives you an idea of the whole trip… isolated..
outdoor shower…….
we arrived at 4pm and had a tent demo.. then we were on our own…. .Bill &
i picked it up pretty quickly…… we then headed up to the pool….
Citrisdal is famous for it’s thermal springs and i kid you not the water is
hot……. This was the same water that we showered under.. ( no hot and
cold taps)… on the tour we have split split into groups of 2 to help with
the duties… I am team Giariffe with sean from canada and Bil is with
trisha from aus and they are team hippo… we basically have to help with
the cooking, help the guide prepare the 3 meals for the day. cleaning, wash
up the dished after the meals, and security pack up the camping equipment
each morning and make sure that the truck is not left unattended during the
day…..

that night we just sat around the camp fire and got to know each other a bit
better.. sat around the fire and told some stories and then headed to bed..

Day 2
6am start.. we have a big drive today to orange river… ORange river is the
border between south africa and namibia…. we arrived at the camp site at
around 4pm… put the tents up etc and then headed down to the river for a
swim….Since the river is the border if you swim right across it you swim
to namibia.. Bill did this of course… i wasn’t so keen as i like to see
the bottom and the water was a little murky but i had a dip to cool of
anyway…
we headed back to camp for some dinner then went to the bar and had a few
drinks…. we met up with another tour group as well so we met some more
cool people..

Day 3
Again up early and watched the sun rise over the orange river and the
mountains that surround it…. it was amazing… the river was colours of
pinks and purples and the mountains went red and orange right in from tof my
eyes….
we went of a 3 hour canoe ride down the organge river which was so relaxing
and beatiful.. seen quite a bit of bird life..

After lunch we were off again headed for fish river canyon.. it was about an
4 hour drive. we set up camp and again went for a swim… the days get
hotter as you go…. we then drove out to the canyon to watch the sun
set…….Fish river canyon is said to be second biggest to the grand canyon
and it did not dissapoint…. we took a 30 minute walk around the edge of
the canyon and they Liz our tour guide had organised some nibbles and drinks
while we sat and watched the sund set….. we also had dinner there as
well…… it was beautiful again to see the landscape change so quickly…

Day 4
we head to the desert
again up at 6 and off to sesirem….. long drive today and kinda
uncomfortable as the temp was around 35 degrees at 10 in the morning.. by
the time we got to the camp site at 4 it had to be close to 40-45 degrees
and the sand was really hot…

the highlight fo the day was actually seeing the start of the desert.. you
have moutains on one side and sand dunes on the other.. quite a contrast
but amazing at the same time… There is very little shade and everyone
looks stunning in thier big hats. sunnies and cool clothes… it got really
windy in the afternoon and we had to pin the tents down as a few off them
started to blow away….there was also the whole sand in your eyes
thing…..
we had and early ngiht as we are heading into the dunes very early tomorrow
morning…

WE heard jackles thourghout the night which was kinda freeky but really
bought it home exactully where wer were… in the desert in africa….

Day 5….
up at 4.30am and heading into the desert… we climded dune 45 which is 125
metres tall and it probably the most publised sand dune in the area…… we
climed to the top of the dune which took provbably close to a half hour, it
was very exhausting and hard.. not easy walking up samd dunes……
BUT
it was so worht the effort.. again the watch the brown dunes of the night
come to life in red and orange colours as the sun hit the sand……. it
didn’t take long for the sand to start to heat up…
at the bottom of the dunes we had bacon and eggs for bfast before headign
further into the desert for a 2 hour desert walk with a local bushman who
lives in the area…

This guy was unreal.. he could tell by the shape of the dunes which way was
north and south etc and showed us just how alive the desert was with all the
wildlife.. lizards, bugs, oryz, jackle, hyimers etc…….
he had the whole group mezmerised for the whole 2 hours… He drove us out
in the back of his 4wd ute and we were all hanging on for dear life as we
cruzed though the dunes… It reminded me of driving aound the farms on the
back oif utes…..

we headed back to camp for lunch at around 1pm and by this time it would
have bene close to 50 degrees in the desert… it was around 40 where we
were….. we were then packed up and headed out to the next camp which was
it was only a short 1 hour drive away……
arrived set up camp, went for a swim to cool down ( can you see the pattern
yet) then had a bit of time to just relax before dinner… again a pretty
early night we were all pretty stuffed from the big dy….

Day 6
again up at 6 and off to swokamond…… we arrived around 11am and headed
to the adventure centre to book our optional tours…… the whole group
booked duning of 4 wheelers for the afternoon. and I booked horseridng on
the beach and dunes for tomorrown and as if you all didn’t know already but
bill booked deep sea fishing off the africa coast for the morning….

For the first time in 6 days we get to sleep in neds tongiht with real
pillows and sheets, dooners etc… get to shower in proper showers and we
have toilets as well… no squatting for 3 days… yeah…

we are in swokomond for 3 nights… the place is pretty layed back and gives
us all a chance to catch up on some sleep, emails, banking and extreme
sporting…..

we all went sand duning in the afternoona nd was truley the best fun i have
had in a long time… we all got a video and i’ve gotta tell you i pulled
off some pretty cool jumps… one was a little scary but damm it looks good
on video………

we went out for dinner tonight as well…we got to sit at a table and had
real plates, drink out of proper glasses and be normal for a night… pretty
cool… we then hit the town.. had a few dances and drinks.. Bill and I
headed home about 12.30am as he was off fishing and i was stuffed and
looking forward to a ngihts sleep in a bed……

so that brings me to today……..sitting at the computer sending this
email…
am with trisha who is from melbourne and we are just giong to have look at
the shops after this and take things easy… I am off with SAm ( the english
huy) this afternoon for extreme horseriding,… should be fun…

would love to hear from some of you to see what is happening in the real
world at home……

take care
love Sheena

Wendy.. Finally finished the Bride stipped bare…… you were right what a
great book so far 3 others on the ttuck have read it as well and i think by
the time we finish the trip we all would have read it. we have formed a
discussion group about the book to discuss out theries………..

Mum… can you forward this to Ben & Tarn as i don’t know if i have thier
email address

talk to you all soon

Vic falls should be the next place i can email which is about 12 days i
think… i don’t even know what the day is today…. i love being on
holidays

wowzers! Its that time of year again – time to apply for an AUC competitive student scholorship to attend WWDC in San Francisco.

Means ive gotta get my butt into gear and finish off my app and also fill out the application form. *sigh* So much to do.

WWDC is a great experience, and id go every year if i could. I guess since i went last year my chances are kinda slim to get accepted again – but ill still have a bash. Ive made some progress and have got stuff to show for having gone last time. hrmmm

joy

Whats the deal with this dude spending $42,000.00 on movie tickets to The Passion of the Christ?!

sheesh, i could fly to Thailand and buy a copy on DVD PLUS buy a projector to view it on and still have a LOT left over for $42,000.00

silly… I didnt think anyone was THAt religious :S