november 30, 2003
tasty surprise
while i haven't cleaned up my house, but i have however eaten strawberries from the garden.
pipstar @ 05:45 PM | link | Comments: *
november 30, 2003
arachnaphobia
while i may have had to clean up my car the other day due to its tricky stealing of my keys, i haven't really got aroung to finishing tidying up my house.
i've done the dishes twice and put things in piles which need to be sorted. but then i switch on my computer and i get stuck...
because i'm playing a stupid, dumb, addictive computer cardgame called spider solitaire.
what really annoys me is that like all versions of solitaire it is just a sorting game. instead i could be dancing around my room sorting out clothes, or old uni notes or cds and cases.
but i persist in wasting time. (i wasted 2 hours today)
though soon i may have less free time to waste as i'm going to start working at an organic store.
say hello to a soon-to-be bonafide sandwich artist.
pipstar @ 05:43 PM | link | Comments: ****
november 28, 2003
mmmm. shiny...
when i got home this afternoon i realised that whoops... i'd locked my keys in the car. luckily i have an outside laundry, so while i was waiting for my mum to kindly drive across town with the spare set i actually washed my car.
i've owned it for almost 6 years and i think that i've only washed it myself about 3 times.
pipstar @ 05:51 PM | link | Comments: *
november 25, 2003
tuesday
i am feeling so much better! [thankyou for all the lovely comments and emails]
yesterday i:
* reinstalled windows
* hung out with helene, ate delicious pizza and watched the kylie concert
today i have:
* hung out with my grandma
* baked a yoghurt cake
* walked up to unley road and looked for christmas presents
* bought a kew red lavander plant for $3.50
* installed macromedia and adobe goodies on my reinvigorated computer
* downloaded skype
* become inspired to do general stuff...
* saw a most beautiful, chocolate brown, super furry and very friendly cat.
pipstar @ 04:47 PM | link | Comments: ****
november 24, 2003
no, not the journalist...
have i ever expressed my love for paul kelly on this here weblog?
because his greatest hits, songs from the south would probably be one of my desert island disks.
go check him out.
pipstar @ 06:07 PM | link | Comments: ***
november 23, 2003
sunday
unemployment and being single and living all by yourself in a big house make sundays suck.
particularly when you have no more uni work to procrastinate and the weather is a little gloomy and you don't have much money and when the night before was really quite exciting (paper tiger! bit by bats! spod!).
and you've realised that all of your friends are extremely talented and gutsy and doing creative things or living in different places and whoops! somehow you forgot to become a writer painter singersongwriter designer showtuneperformer dragking standupcomedienne ladyskateboarder filmmaker architecturalgenius drumbanger even in your spare time and while you like working with computers you really don't want to spend your life exploring multi-threading technologies and database indexes, but hey at least you'll get paid.
and then you get to thinking how living in another city would be ace but it would be a little scary and how you really love adelaide so much that coming back home made you cry and you can live well here without selling your soul and how you completely love the people who are your friends but someday they'll probably move away and realistically you will too.
so you spend two hours looking at some job ads (should you do the super hard sell at ratbag? storm down the doors and tell them that while you're not fanatic about games it's only because the ultimate game for ladies hasn't been developed and that you should be there to help them develop it. oooh. the untapped market) and writing a blog entry in the second person. you forget to eat or drink anything because sadly, food hasn't been that interesting to you lately.
yay for sundays.
pipstar @ 02:19 PM | link | Comments: **********
november 22, 2003
where's spring gone?
the weather was super hot for a while and suddenly it's gone all cool, which isn't that much fun. i was hoping that today would be a beautiful spring day. like on my birthday...
which is a great segway (sp?) into this link:
brian's photos from my birthday party.
i'm going to use the next hour or so to tidy up my car which is full of lecture notes from last minute exam swotting and to put some stakes around the tomatoes. i will be organised...
pipstar @ 03:42 PM | link | Comments: ****
november 22, 2003
straight guy
i think that i'm going to send an application for my little bro to be on the australian version of queer eye. it could be a really amusing episode... and he'd feel so much more confident at the end of it all.
pipstar @ 03:32 PM | link | Comments:
november 21, 2003
shhhhh.
thank god! an exam that i could do!
seriously it would be almost impossible to get below a distinction for the secure and high integrity systems exam. and it was actually a pleasant exam to write, the questions were nicely worded and the revision guide we were given was spot on.
so now comes a weekend of fun and efficiency.
i have two more exams on wednesday and thursday but i'm going to use my time over the next couple of days to tidy up stuff (inspired by miss jen jen), get together some christmas present supplies and prepare for some IT training i'll be running in a couple of weeks.
also, my tomato plants need staking and i should really put some mulch down...
pipstar @ 05:58 PM | link | Comments: *
november 18, 2003
sorrow and guilt.
i'm sure that you're all biting your fingernails with anticipation over how i went in the intelligent systems technology exam. urgh...
well, shall i put it this way, if i pass the exam i'll be very very happy. and surprised. luckily in that instance i'll actually pass the subject (presuming i got 30% worth of assignment marks.
never before have i failed a subject. yikes.
but if i do fail i'm going to beg and plead and ask if i can resubmit the failed practical assignments so that i get an extra 15%.
anyway, the only thing that this experience would be similar to is repeatedly cheating on your much loved partner with a boring, ugly person. it's not as if i was doing anything remotely justifiable instead of doing IST work.
give me a week or two and i'll be posting again properly. i just want to vent about how i've managed to completely F$(* myself up this semester.
i have more subjects to study for...
pipstar @ 05:12 PM | link | Comments: ***
november 16, 2003
psychosomatic
i have never before been nervous about exams, but the next two days are freaking me out.
stomach fluttering... urgh.
pipstar @ 09:35 PM | link | Comments: **
november 15, 2003
napisan ultra
at 24 years of age you'd think that i'd be able to wear a white tshirt for more than 4 hours without getting it dirty.
no such chance. in between study sessions i went to the supermarket. in the fifteen minutes i spent there i managed to get a series of mysterious blotches on my tshirt.
pipstar @ 08:36 PM | link | Comments: ****
november 13, 2003
voluptuous
the feeling of clover under my bare feet.
the heat of the sun through my back.
hot water hitting against my skin.
sliding my tongue over newly brushed teeth.
the smell of remembrance as i rub my hand over a rosemary plant.
the way my body feels when i sing.
a cup of tea sliding down my throat.
pipstar @ 05:33 PM | link | Comments:
november 13, 2003
quick brown fox in the sky
i was completely unproductive today:
* i woke up at 1. please kick my ass. i should have been studying
* i surfed weblogs which hadn't been updated.
* i filled in only two online surveys.
* i made tasty pasta.
* i remembered that the database technology exam is open book, so i got even lazier
* i watched mda and paid attention, but lazed my way through law and order.
* i checked my email many many times and checked the mailbox about 5 (not that i'm expecting anything... it just gives me something to do)
of course, now i'm wide awake because i slept in like a lazy dog.
so i figured out today that if i withdraw fail for IST it's the same as if i actually sit the exam and fail, and if i sit the exam and fail i can get a conceeded pass if i get an overall mark of 45-49%.
i have never, ever, ever been this close to failing a subject. yet i do very, very little.
pipstar @ 12:50 AM | link | Comments: **
november 12, 2003
nincompoop
a couple of things which are annoying me:
- if i'd bothered to go to yoga for the last semester i'd have a beautiful toned body and i'd be able to do a handstand. because i didn't i'm only slightly toned and unhealthier and i still can't do a handstand!
- if i'd read the textbooks for both database technology and intelligent systems technology during the term i'd be potentially looking at good marks. instead i didn't go to lectures, didn't read lecture notes and didn't read the textbook and only now am i going "duh! this is actually understandable."
(really LISP should have been the language for me. i love writing lists (and i'm forever using unnecessary nested parentheses.))
pipstar @ 06:22 PM | link | Comments: **
november 10, 2003
eek
my first exam is in less than a week, which means that my final exam, potentially and probably forever* is going to happen in just under three weeks!
luckily i've got two open book exams, which takes some of the pressure off, but i still have to study so hard for intelligent systems technology. i'm making my way through that textbook very slowly.
i've never really had exam related stress before, but last night i had a dream in which i thought that i had to write an essay on a henry james novel. i freaked out. especially since my degree has nothing to do with 19th century north american literature.
* i won't discount the strong possiblity of me returning to university, but i'm hoping it would be phd type research, or some type of postgraduate course where i don't have to do exams.
[secretly, if i could restart my university career again i'd take up architecture, but that's a 5 year degree if i want to practice. so it's unlikely that i'll do it in the next 10 years. ]
pipstar @ 11:19 PM | link | Comments:
november 09, 2003
marking time
I just watched one of the most powerful pieces of television that I have ever seen.
I'm hoping that it will be repeated soon, but you can still watch the second half of marking time tomorrow night (monday) on ABC at 8.30pm.
pipstar @ 09:50 PM | link | Comments: *
november 08, 2003
dream sequence
i'm in berlin and some boys from the party (a german and an aussie) have offered to share a cab back to where i'm staying and i feel a pain in my arm and they've injected me with some type of tranquiliser. the aussie boy laughs.
oh god i'm in some fucked up daterape drug situation and luckily the taxi pulls over and someone else tries to get in the cab and somehow i get out and find some friends. we try to report the attempted daterape and i'm woozy but i remember the car number plate but we're talking on the phone to the police and my german is not good enough. we try to find some type of women's drop in centre to get counselling, but they are in the suburbs. i think that this is not the berlin i know.
i get in a car and try to drive to prague to sir tobys and the friends there but i come to some type of border crossing and it's night and i walk through a trainstation and it's empty. i go back to the car and avoid the hitchhiker trying to pick up a lift.
i'm back in berlin or is it maybe vienna, germanic nonetheless though the bar could be in spain and there's a bookstore nearby. was that lara from mary martin i saw walking past (the bar wasn't shotz) there are some german people i know there but not very well, i keep trying to tell someone that their supposed friends who were at the party intended to rape me, but then i see anna h from school and she's handing out fliers but she doesn't recognise me and i think that she's got a drug problem but even in my dream i know that she's really in london working in publishing.
i napped instead of studying and woke up covered in sweat. and i remembered just then. i should go back to reading my textbook.
pipstar @ 07:49 PM | link | Comments:
november 07, 2003
Part of me is wishing that reports were marked by weight and not by content. Because I know that a report should be concise, and it should demonstrate clarity of ideas... and quite frankly the 10000 wd+ behemoth (not including policy documents) that we're handing up is not concise or clear.
It's more on the blurry and elaborate side.
And it will be submitted soon... which is good as I've only eaten an apple so far today and I haven't even had a cup of tea and I just want my group members to come back so that we can print up the final version, put it in a folder, sign bits of paper and then go!
And then i can eat...
I think that I'll go to the market for yumminess and then home for elaborate pre-exam preparation tidying up.
pipstar @ 01:11 PM | link | Comments: *
november 07, 2003
keep the drum rolling please
the report is almost done. which means that my career in procrastination is almost over.
i think that it's going to be about 9000 words not including the policy attachments.
ouch. lucky there's a pretty lenient word limit.
and then there's only a couple of 400 word papers to write and an IST tute to write up. oh, and 5 exams to study for.
and i don't really procrastinate exam study. i just incorporate fun activities into the day.
pipstar @ 12:35 AM | link | Comments:
november 06, 2003
gadget longing
I really want one of those USB vault things. I'd be able to carry data on a string around my neck and it could even play MP3s.
but, if i bought one now, it would be redundant in a week as I won't need to carry data between home and uni...
pipstar @ 11:40 AM | link | Comments:
november 05, 2003
an entry in which i bitch about the perils of group assignments.
completing this report for SHIS should have been easy. all we need to do is divide up which questions to answer, write them, collate them and then sit down to write an executive summary, recommendations and policy document. sweet
so why am I having to reference all the other people's work? write in suggestions and send them off to do more stuff, which they don't do properly, leaving me to fix up a report so that i'll get a good mark and they come along for the ride? and then be left completing my sections at the last minute?
while it sucks having to do them, anonymous peer assessments are the only way to go with university group assignments. that way a mark can be assigned on how much work was actually done. pete and josh will attest to the fact that even though bitchiness can often be a result, the people who do the work will end up with better marks.
and i haven't eaten any dinner, just bits of salami and chocolate. (i did have a much needed nap during dinner).
please, remind me why i'm doing this?
pipstar @ 11:10 PM | link | Comments: ****
november 05, 2003
l.i.s.p.
i'm finally beginning to grasp what could have been between you and me. me becoming obsessed with brackets, and teaching computers how to think...
but it is not to be.
i am submitting the bare minimum for the second prac (and i got significant help with that)... and praying that i can answer the exam well.
LISP, if only you could be more readable... like my friends C and Java.
[i'm such a failed geek]
pipstar @ 12:22 AM | link | Comments: *
november 03, 2003
my bonds™ pyjama pants
this morning i slept in. and i missed a lecture.
but after i had my shower i put on my new summer pyjama pants (which are too pretty to be worn just at night) and did some yoga (2nd day in a row after about 4 months off) and did cartwheels on the lawn.
the weather is just perfect and birds are singing and my pyjama pants are so cute.
i may wear them everyday. i may wear them to exams. i may wear them out at night to cool clubs.
people need to see them, and at the moment there's noone who would see me wearing them in bed. and quite frankly if there was, would i be wearing pyjamas?
pipstar @ 01:50 PM | link | Comments: ***
november 01, 2003
snowed under
I know that i'm going to get through this week efficiently, just because there's no other way of approaching all the work due.
I've pretty much had to act as a tutor to the other members of one of my group projects. Concepts such as answering questions and using in-text citations are lost on them. And I'm going to have to thoroughly edit everything that they've written.
5000+ words. Oh whoop-de-doo!
And there's the concept of getting the first part of the IST practical done. (I H.A.T.E. LISP... it just confuses me so much!)
Two mini-reports and a basic website for CIT. That's going to be my fun for the week!
Luckily I did the Database Technology XML assignment last week, I'd submit it now but the system isn't accepting submisssions yet.
And then there's peer assessment for the other group assignment I did.
Bring on the end of my undergraduate career I say!
© 2002 - 2007 Pippa Buchanan