It’s easy to make a buck. It’s a lot tougher to make a difference. - Tom Brokaw

I was originally going to write about something else, but after reading through this incredible blog I just had to write about it. If you get anything out of my little blog, then it would be to go over there and read some incredible stories. It makes me feel very privileged and I should be very grateful to be in a part of the world where I do not fear for my life, when driving a car, or when living in my home or going to hospital. Sometimes we forget how lucky we are and how much for granted we take many things. I salute the owner of that blog and anyone else who is willing to stay in countries such as South Africa and try to do good for their country. Very brave and very noble. Never give up!

Which brings me to the next point. This is an excerpt (or a cut out, however you want to call it) from this one source of a scene (or a passage, again however you want to call it) that I thought I will share with everyone (anyone?) out there. I got the inspiration as I mentioned from reading the blog and in particular the latest post on that blog. The owner of that blog actually mentioned ”the story of the starfish” and I think this is referring to the same/similar thing. Hence enjoy: 

 ………

The balloon lands in a small open area, on the south beach of Cabeiri.  You get off and the balloon sails back into the sky.

The sand here gets very hot in the daytime. The beach | [ ] - [X]      
carries on to the west and to the southeast lay some    |           \ 
cliffs. There are several balloons here that will take     |             [ ]
you to different areas around this world. A beach        |
house is not too far from here either.                         |

There are three obvious exits:  house, west, and southeast.
                   

The Balloon Keeper is here.

Balloon keeper says: Welcome to the balloon landing.  There is a sign here which lists the services available, I hope you enjoy the ride.

>”You go South East”

There is very little life here. The coast is rocky        | [ ]            
and the cold sea air blows harshly against your        |    \       
skin.                                                                 |     [X]     
                                                                                         | 
                                                                                                                                                                           

The only obvious exit is northwest.

A starfish is here.

>”You look at the starfish”

>”Suddenly from observing the starfish, you rember the story told many moons ago…”

A wise man was taking a sunrise walk along the beach.  In the distance he caught sight of a young man who seemed to be dancing along the wave. As he got closer he saw that the young man was picking up starfish from the sand and tossing them gently back into the ocean.

“What are you doing?” the wise man asked.
“The sun is coming up and the tide is going out; if I don’t throw them in, they’ll die.”
“But young man, there are miles and miles of beach with starfish along it.  You can’t possibly make a difference.”

The young man bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it lovingly back into the ocean, past the breaking waves.
“It makes a difference for that one,” he replied.

>”After the reminiscing of the story you pick up the starfish”

The one starfish is in your hands.

“You know what to do with it”

 ……

I never knew it was happening to me. I read many med related blogs about it. The horrors of pimping seemed so real. Within the blog Med School Hell (as an example) I found many descriptions of horrible ogre like doctors, physicians with a need to see fear and sweet from a newbie, evil nurses prowling the corridors ready to strike and see blood from incorrect answers!!! I have actually experienced this pimping to a degree.

But let me get this straight. I am not a med student (not for 10 or so more years anyhow ha-ha) and nor is my course medically oriented (like a premed course as they call it in the US). It is a science related course though and there are many subjects that I have taken that have a medical-ish/clinical-ish aspect to it. Anatomy was one of them.

However, at the time I had no clue about any of this. I never read any of these blogs that have been going on for years and years, I did not know what pimping was (in the medical aspect), ‘LOL’ to me was ‘laugh out loud’ and not ‘little old lady’, and the closest association I had to GSW was HEAD SHOT HEAD SHOT in CS. I basically chose Anatomy over ‘Calculus and scientific statistics’ because well… who wouldn’t?

Head shot! Head shot! DIE TERRORIST SCUM!

 A GSW of a child from one side of the head to the other.

Note:This picture is the ‘least disturbing’ when searching for “gunshot wound in Google images”. Don’t say I didn’t worn ya.

Anyway when I went in my Anatomy practical classes I was like the chubby kid in the candy shop. I have never seen a cadaver before in my life (and when I first heard of this I actually thought of fish eggs) and everything was new to me. The green gown/dress attire of clothing was a bit strange but apart from that it was an incredible learning experience. It is one thing to listen to a lecturer all day talk about the flexors of the thigh, it is another thing to see the actual muscles being pulled like pulleys and producing actual flexion. Ditto for all the nerve innervation, blood supply etc. Thinking about it some more, this theory vs practical applications applies to more than just anatomy class but anyway back to the story…

Hence after poking through the cadavers and hearing a bit of a spiel from the demonstrator about this muscle and that nerve becoming into that nerve and that opening and that space etc, the head demonstrator came in. The questions commenced. Again I (and I think a lot of other people in my class) had no idea of this ‘pimping’ aspect and instead just called it the ’gee that guy asked a lot of fricken questions!!’ after the prac. It was difficult and many times I got questions wrong and called an artery a vein and other silly mistakes which made me feel and look like a tool. He would go on discussing the anatomy some more and as we were all in a circle he would always go clockwise and begin to ask questions one at a time pointing to a structure and so forth. We were all nervous as hell and were all praying for the easy ‘what structure is this - while pointing to a muscle’ question.

Gluteus maximus. Tell me that’s not the name of a Roman general that has slain 600 men with his bare hands?

This went on for an entire year. Over time our head demonstrator gauged the questions and began to know many of us in what our personality is (i.e do we like answering questions, do we have a clue, are we clueless) and he fitted those questions accordingly. In the end though, after being asked more questions in that subject alone than in my entire undergrad degree: I have to say it wasn’t too bad. I mean sure, no one likes to look like an idiot in front of other people, but that’s life and people look like idiots all the time. You do not need a daily dose of YouTube to realize that. I suppose this entire pimping thing is what you make it. A me vs them or a well OK let’s try and learn some things.

Naive much? Maybe… From what I have experienced though it wasn’t the end of the world.

Stay tuned… 

To many people holidays are not voyages of discovery, but a ritual of reassurance. - Philip Andrew Adams

Hey all! Miss me? Come on, say it’s true.

Exams are over! The semester is over! The holidays have begun… well actually they begun a few days ago but I only settled in ‘holiday mode’ now. So then what is the first thing I do when jumping on the net? Write a blog! This is however a little note to say that all is well, all is going fine and there are no problems in my world outside of blogging! I got so many little tidbits of things to talk about and say but they will have to wait until another time (and this other time will be very very soon ).

Just thought I would mention my little bit of thanks for all those loyal visitors that stopped by after I took time of! I was actually surprised I got above one viewer after my ~2 month hiatus from this. Glad to see there are still people who would rather procrastinate than do actual work!

Anyway, time for me to shut up. Will write again soon!

Cheers! 

It is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich. - Henry Ward Beecher

Woah that was a fun semester. In a strange random super fast sort of way. I had so many assignments/reports/essays/homework/orals/etc to do that it completely consumed my life. Oh and the actual having a life outside of blogging didn’t help this blog much. Ah but unfortunately I am only here to make a quick little ‘hello’ to anyone out there still paying attention to this blog (population zero). Yes I am still alive and well and yes I got many more stories to tell. Unfortunately they will have to wait until I finish my exams which will take the greater part of June. I won’t be logging on here until then but I do hope you all have a great June (whatever you happen to be doing around June!)

All the best everyone!

Well I am not the first blogger to say this, but far out, real life is really really busy. University reports, assignments and all those other things that make life distinct from the Internet and blogging are up and running. This makes it really difficult to blog. I really don’t understand (excluding those that get paid to blog) how people can blog 3/4 posts a day. I salute you all (or laugh at you for going a tad overboard, whatever way you want to look at it ). Oh and let’s not forget the exams that are coming up. Yay! Who’s excited?

So to finish of in some half ass sort of way (as has been done so before sadly) I will put this video I saw up here for others to see. All I can say is damn. TV is such a powerful tool to show you things that are so obvious and yet, so many people miss it and make the same mistake. The vicious cycle continues etc. Suddenly all those rapists, psychopaths and stalkers don’t seem so unreal. They were just doing what others before them have done. Nothing new. So why are we still getting shocked?

(Ah this reminds me to make a post about my views on capital punishment for some reason….I shall make a draft of that me thinks)

Anyway sorry again to all you wonderful awesome super cool readers out there (totalling zero of course but shhhh). I will try and reduce my life and spend more time on this stupid blog in future.

Word!

Who here loves the Discovery Channel?

Put on your David Attenborough voice over: “Hee-are we see an evolved species, in it’s na-Tur-aL habitat.” 

Great works have been filmed and viewed from it on countless occasions. Yes I am showing my real deep geeky/nerdy side (I which consist of 9 different types of cheese) but I have to admit that I am absolutely fascinated by a lot of the things that show throws at us! Animals in the wild are among an all time favourite (along with what Animal Planet gives us of course).

Recently I had the pleasure of watching all 4 episodes of the Human Body series. Overall it was quite good. The whole show is presented in an excited exaggerated kind of format for the average lay person. I liked the overall structure of it, but to me a lot of terms seemed very basic and I was on the edge of my seat waiting for them to say hypothalamus, pineal gland or the frontal lobe instead of the ‘learning centre’, the ’sleep control centre’ or the  ‘logical thought processing centre’ respectively. Now I know why doctors want to throw up when they watch shows like House or Grey’s Anatomy. To be fair I didn’t notice anything inaccurate with the show (I am still a newbie scientist though so don’t take my words as gospel), but it just seemed very basic. I guess that’s what learning about a lot of the stuff they said though does to you. What the average stuff is said on the media and TV about science is so basic but yet, for many it is stuff that people barely can understand. The same thing obviously occurs to me when I read about legal things, financial things (seriously it’s all just a bunch of random numbers to me), or any other topic I am not specialized in (life in general maybe… OOH SNAP!).

The right hypothalamus is connected to the right thalamus, the right thalamus is connected to the…

Oh and one more thing. I found the constant flashes back and forth and constant editing and repeating of certain scenes a bit excessive. I suppose the purpose of it was of course to bring excitement and make the show seem like fun, but to me it seemed like they tried a bit too much to excite and dazzle! Or people like flashy stuff? I suppose it’s better than reading it from a book so I will shut up now hehe.

I did learn a number of awesome things though. This includes:

-If you are ever lost at sea with little or no food, the fishes un cooked liver, skin, eyes (has fresh water in them believe it or not), and a bunch of other internal organs are quite tasty.
-You can fall 60 feet (OMG its 21st century people- no offence of course!) and get by with a fractured knee joint a fractured hip and still survive after 2 days of agony.

I thought this proves the above point quite nicely. ;) (I just dug a deep deep hole didn’t I?)

MOVING ON:

-You can lift 500 pounds (or was it more) when you are just about to fall of a cliff.
-You can run faster than a camel when a fireball is thrown at you by a wizard.
-Staying awake for 2 days makes you cranky and there’s a reason why people hate alarm clocks.
-Magic tricks are fun.
-Some people have cheesy voices. I mean ugh, magic is cool!?
-The magic colour changing card trick (YouTube this one)
-Monks from China can survive pain via controlling their mind and stuff.
-Eating less food makes you live longer (I want to look this up for confirmation as I can imagine some of my lecturers debating this, but for all I know it can be an accepted fact from the scientific community). 
-We might be able to one day control our dreams (THIS IS COOL IMO)
-We might be able to restore the vision of people in the future (well I guess people always knew this will one day happen, but they showed a really awesome case of this on the show)

Plus heaps more!

So yeah, when bored and you want to know a few more things about your body, do check it out. You just might learn a thing or two!

My obsessive compulsive is the mandatory placing of a caption under every picture, when it might not be needed. ;) 

If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it’s another nonconformist who doesn’t conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity. - Bill Vaughan

I really don’t have anything to add today (as I have a lot of real life stuff going on) so you shall not get the usual stellar blog post (ha ha). Instead I thought I blog about the directory that I just added myself into. Similar to this, if you want chuck your blog in. I do not suggest it but if you want, by all means!

Wiki Blog Directory <———-*Neon sign*———|

In case you are curious (and I know you are) I added myself to the categories: English, Australia, Humor (ha ha me funny?), Science, Blogging and Miscellaneous/Oddball (which is probably the only one that suits me).

I will make a more serious/deep/full on/ blog post tomorrow maybe. For now I am going to get back to my assignment that I started here.

Anyhow, have a great day/night!

This is so awesome. I had never heard of the experiment at the time I saw this video and it was a complete surprise for me at the end. I was assuming that since the research was done over 50 years ago, there was no ethics committee to tell him that what he was doing was unethical or immoral so everything was really happening. In the end though it turned out all right haha! Anyway this video below is the extended full version (I saw a 10 minute cheesy version filled with humor on spikedhumor) so it’s more educational and stuff.

Learning about psychology has never been more fun! See the wiki article for more basic details.

We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect. - Henry David Thoreau

Picture this. It is 11 am and I have 2 free hours before my next lecture. I am in a computer room writing up a bit of the introduction for my latest assignment and doing a bit of research. Looking up journals via PubMed, some Wikipedia articles for background knowledge that kind of thing. There’s quite a few people in the computer room but it’s not packed and there’s a computer or 4 free. This particular computer room (of which there are many scattered around my uni) happens to also be where the office of the head IT guys for all the computers in my university are at and they come in the computer room now and again as people sometimes have questions to ask them and what not about technical related computer stuff.

Anyway I am typing along minding my own business when an older individual happens to walk in. I pretend I am looking at something on my screen when I notice he begins to look around. He stares at me and goes on to give a big glance at the rest of the room, before he decides to place his laptop like bag on a computer next to me. He heads of back to this big machine where you are able to purchase credit for printing and stuff. I hear the distinct sound the machine makes when it’s printing out a temporary visitor/guest card. These are used for people of the general public to be able to walk in and use the facilities by purchasing cards as such and then being able to use the computers for whatever printing/scanning etc.

Quite similar to this actually.

So he has purchased a temporary printing/general access card and he then went on to put some money in the card. He places a certain note and he then takes a seat next to me and logs on his computer. I continue to read up on the journal, pretending to be doing work. He clicks around the computer after it logs on and he is up and running on the net. I tune out from him and continue on with my work at this point. I did notice though he was anxious and kept looking at me and people around him. Damn it I know he is up to something. After a few minutes you hear one of the printers (of which there are 3 massive printers in that particulat computer room go of ready to do their job. Suddenly this old guy gets up and goes of to collect his prints. It is at that point I saw what he was printing…

What a typical printing card looks like.

NO not porn(that would have been funny), but rather pictures of ladies. You know ladies in their 30’s late 20’s and such. The website was some dating/social website (I presume you need to be a member of those dating services to view other members photos) and what was this guy doing? PRINTING OUT multiple (the printer went of at least 20 times per picture) copies of random ladies in their late 20’s and 30’s. I say random because he repeated the entire process with different women. Several times. He browsed through several profiles, opened up the picture gallery, went of to print of the pictures. Profile after profile after profile, each at 15 (if not more) copies per individual. May I remind you that guests that come out of the university to print are charged a bit more. This did not stop him though as I noticed him insert notes several times into the printing machine.

While this pic is funny in it’s own right it clearly depicts the age bracket of what he was printing.

By this point I could no longer resist and I glanced when he wasn’t looking at his web screen and saw the profile in more detail. When he came back after a batch of prints you can clearly see one of the photos revealing the individual with the photo in an A4 sized sheet of paper. When he sat down on the computer he placed all the prints in his laptop like bag and repeated the cycle. After about 15 or so individuals and many pages later he had all of those prints in his bag and by 12.15 he was out of there. I maintained my composure throughout the event to ward of suspicion. He walked out less nervous than coming in. It wasn’t long before the computer was taken by another individual from the university of to do their work. 

 So what the hell just happened?

Did an old guy just come in from the streets, out of nowhere, log on the university computers, jump on some social dating website, print 200+ pages of pictures of random ladies, placed them in his bag and then walked right out like it was nothing? Was I the only person that noticed? There were people around but everyone went of doing their thing. No one said anything or looked perplexed and the IT guy walked by our computers several times with out a moment’s pause.

What a typical dating website might look like. Thank you google images.

Am I exaggerating? Was it a simple misunderstanding. I know for a fact that it did occur (I did not imagine or make any of this up for fun) and what I wrote down here is the whole truth, but maybe I misinterpreted what he was doing? Maybe people do this often? Maybe one of the ladies he was printing out happened to be his girlfriend? Relative? Sister in law? Daughter? Maybe he was printing them out for a special function and that individual requested the prints. Did all 15 request them though? From the one old guy?

Right now I am thinking of the worst. I mean seriously, you hear about it all the time in news and such. Stalkers, psychopaths, obsessive compulsive, people coming out of parole, doing their research online. Finding out about his victims. Getting ID. Using them for his own pleasure? Does he stick them up his room? His basement? I know it all sounds absolutely ridiculous and it’s easy to laugh at and joke about it but damn, the whole one hour event did not feel right.

It’s no laughing matter. These guys are whacked.

Should I have said anything? ‘Hey man, computers are for study purposes only’.  But isn’t that where the ‘mind your own business comes in though’? Privacy law blah blah blah. Worth contacting the police over? Sounds like I am making a big deal out of it.

Whatever the case may be, it teaches me one very valuable lesson. Anyone, anywhere, anytime can access the Internet and if you have just uploaded your ‘family pics from Thailand’, do consider setting the pictures with your family on private and make so it’s only accessible to family and friends and people you can generally trust. Pics of dogs and randoms riding surfboards or a sunset and stuff is cool to show of to the world, but don’t be so free to post all your pics of family and friends for everyone to see. You don’t know what freakazoid across the world will be printing them out and pinning them to his wall to look at every day…

Happy posting!

PS.  Check this out. It’s a bit old, but it relates to what I was saying above. Note that these were found only because the sexual predators used their real names. Imagine all the ones that use a fake name/pseudonym.

More men are killed by overwork than the importance of the world justifies. - Rudyard Kipling

Ah almost forgot about this series of blog posts! This is a continuation from part 1 (obviously since this is called part 2) and with out any more delay, I present you the next batch of 5 species of university students, present in my campus (and quite possibly in your campus as well ). For more background on this, seriously see part 1. I am not typing it all out again (well I can copy/paste it but shhhhhhhhhhhhh).

LEGEND/KEY:
—————————
 Common name (what they are generally classed as determined by the masses) followed by Scientific name (OK just my attempt at typing up random Latin letters).

-Gender: Male, female, a bit in between.. (hey heard about that dude that is pregnant?!!? No kidding…)
-Appearance: A simple few signs, gives ability to point out this freakazoid in public and laugh at him
-Noise level: From non existent to Jet engine (self explanatory don’t you think)?
-Distraction level: Again self explanatory but just to be annoying; from non existent to causing you to fail your course and force you to repeat a year.
-Seating arrangements: Front row, back row, next to the lecturer, at home in bed, on the side, always the same spot, is there variety?
-Annoyance factor: A rating of 1-10, 1 meaning who cares he does not bother me and I did not even know he existed until you described him to me, to 10 meaning wanting to assassinate said individual before he utters another word/question/remark. It will be divided up as follow:
*General student cohort: What the UNI people think.
*Lecturers: What the lecturer thinks.
-Prevalence: Majority, minority, making a reappearance, more in first year? Second year?
-Airplane throwing at their head: Will you get caught if you throw a paper airplane at their head? Will they care? Will they throw it back? Eat it? Etc…
-Other features: Misc. (I have no witty anecdotes or analogies for this)
-Survival rate: Will they be extinct anytime soon? When will we see the last of their species? Will they continue on to honors? PhD? 
-Similar species: AKA can mate successfully with
-General description: Some finishing comment.

 Competitives (Cokus smalus)

-Gender: Males. Tend to have a small penis though so it can get confusing.
-Appearance: Walk fast. Tend to carry books in lectures and laboratory experiments.
-Noise level: As quiet as a ninja. But when they get 94% on a test (when they were expecting 69 thousand %) all hell will break loose. Put on your earplugs to stop hearing the banshee whining.
-Distraction level: Very high. A lot of times you want to get up and just smack them with the ten thousand page book they are carrying around.
-Seating arrangements: Whatever seat provides the best view of the lecturers ass. (In a metaphorical sense ALL RIGHT?)
-Annoyance factor:
*General student cohort:10 (See general description)
*Lecturers: 2-10 (Depending on experience of lecturer. A score of 2 means the lecturer is newbie enough to not see through all the ass kissing. 10 means the lecturer has seen it all before and despises the annoying pestering competitive)
-Prevalence: Always a group of about 15/20 per 100.
-Aeroplane throwing at their head: If you were to throw a paper aeroplane at their head,  they would see it as a threat to them achieving the perfect marks and would use all their might and harness their douche mana to fire a greasy at you.
-Other features: Have been known to devour fetuses to obtain stem cell energy
-Survival rate: Unfortunately throughout your degree.
-Similar species: Premeds
-General description: These guys suck. They compete at you at every turn and look at life in general as one big competition. They will do whatever they can to get a better mark than you, even if it means telling you the wrong information so your score percentages that are a lot higher in variance. Their favourite day would be if they were to get 100% on an insanely hard test that the lecturer wouldn’t even be able to get right, and the rest of the class fails. That of course never happens and these guys are forever depressed and cold due to that fact. You try to be friends with them and all they will talk about is the work and how better their scores are to yourself They will give you the percentage low down of your marks (they will get your university ID number and use that to look at all of your scores obsessively) and after giving you a power point presentation complete with excell charts and tables of your scores, they will conclude that you suck and their marks rule. They forget however that they talk a lot of shit and the scores the average individual gets are quite close to their ‘great’ scores. Someone should tell them that 8 hours of sleep a day is actually good for the brain (they only getting 4/5). 

You say hello to a competitive.

Results are deadly. For all parties involved (The skinny guy is representative of the lecturer).

————————

 Premeds (Medus Minimalis)
-Gender: All three genders.
-Appearance: Dorky, and eager. Ready for anything that gets thrown at them. Well except a conversation. SNAP!
-Noise level: SHH!
-Distraction level: Low. They mind their own.
-Seating arrangements: Where do you think? AT THE FRONT!!!!!
-Annoyance factor:
*General student cohort: 10 (Stop asking questions please!)
*Lecturers: 3 (They get their assignments done 4 weeks in advance so…)
-Prevalence: Annoyingly high. More so in science related course. Biomedical science is a haven for these douches.
-Aeroplane throwing at their head: The best targets.
-Other features: Small penis for the males. The female variety are just strange but I won’t go there further .
-Survival rate: Always a presence felt to the very end of the degree.
-Similar species: Competitives and Gunners (but the Gunner is present in Med School so they do not mate often)
-General description: Yup this is quite self explanatory. But I will still give my spiel. This species is an earlier form of the Classic Gunner as they are documented by this guy and this guy. They are currently in the cocoon stage while not in Med School but once they do get in they will bloom into caterpillars (no wait Butterflies sorry). It is surprising how these fools didn’t get into Med School earlier (as you can do so in Australia via an undergraduate degree). They had perfect high school scores and they did great in the UMAT. But for some reason or another, they missed out, maybe by karma, maybe due to the fact that they talk a lot of shit and actually DIDN’T get those great scores they were bragging about in high school. They hence will take second best and that would turn out to be some course that has the term Medicine in it. So they fill up courses like mine, expecting a smooth transition from their undergrad to their dream. While in the process they tend to evolve and show early signs of the annoying factors of being Gunners. They will ask question in lecturers repeatedly, disrupting the flow of the lecture. They will ask for their marks to get rechecked repeatedly as they believe their 98% is not valid and should be raised to their expected 99.9%. They will argue about stuff that they misread in another book to a professor that did his or her PhD on it and claim that he is wrong. Basically these people stress a tad bit too much. I suppose if they want to exemplify Gunner status when they eventually get into Med School, then they are doing a good job. 

Puts on David Attenborough’s voice: “Here we see the premeds, in their natural habitat, after a day of question asking and annoying the entire university.” 

Complainers (Constantus Cryus)

-Gender: Both genders (if I was to say more females than males I think someone would complain, so I rather not ).
-Appearance: Demeanour of disappointment. Unsatisfactory appearance.
-Noise level: None (except for the occasional sigh and smirk and swearing under the breath)
-Distraction level: High. See general description.
-Seating arrangements: Usually at the back.
-Annoyance factor:
*General student cohort: 10 (Will you PLEASE shut the fuck up?)
*Lecturers: 10 (Again, will you PLEASE shut the fuck up!?)
-Prevalence: Their presence is always felt (and heard)
-Aeroplane throwing at their head: This would just get them to complain MORE so we tend not to.
-Other features: Sucks at living.
-Survival rate: They are everywhere!!!
-Similar species: Whoever has a whiny voice and likes to bitch and complain at all times. Yeah that’s right, you know who I am referring to… YOUR MOMMA!
-General description:  Oh my God will you please SHUT THE FUCK UP. Seriously, these idiots do not know how to shut up. They get to a lecture, hear the lecture for the entire session and the general consensus was that it was a good and decent lecture. What do you hear from their mouths?

“OMG  that was so hard, I didn’t learn a thing”
                                                      “He spoke too fast”
                                                                              “He had too many lecture notes” 
“The lecturer went overtime”
…. and on and on the list it goes. But the complaining doesn’t stop in the lecture theatre.

 ”OMG there was so much traffic in the morning” 
                                               “These seats are uncomfortable” 
                                                                                “The coffee is too hot”
“The coffee tastes like shit”
                               “Everything here is so expensive” 
                                                           “This university sucks”
                                                                                “I hate this subject” 
“This subject is so boring”.

 As you can see they find to complain about everything plus more. The university they go to sucks, their job sucks, their course sucks, their lecturer sucks, basically life just sucks for them. Well I have one bit of advice for you that think so: NO ONE CARES!? OK? I mean sure, we can bitch about something from time to time as a joke but to have a complete negative view of life only leads to one thing…. A bitchy whiny person that complains and complains and complains. No one likes that. Be happy with life and appreciate things. It will turn your whole world around! But whatever, I suppose this is just another coping mechanism for people to survive through this hectic lifestyle of the 21st century. 
 

That caption should read: “I suck and once I get my head out of my ass, do convince me otherwise!”

———————————–

 Psychologists (Constantus Analysis)

-Gender: Both
-Appearance: Note pad in one hand, pencil in other.
-Noise level:High, opinionated.
-Distraction level: Low.
-Seating arrangements: That depends…
-Annoyance factor:
*General student cohort: 3. That is all.
*Lecturers: 2. Don’t question it.
-Prevalence: They are present everywhere, not just in psychology type courses actually.
-Aeroplane throwing at their head: Now that’s not nice. They try and listen to your problems and what do you do? Shame on you!
-Other features: N/A
-Survival rate: They tend to stick around (you know, like flies on a wall get it? –> listen to your problems HA HA! get it? No?)
-Similar species: Not that I know of.
-General description: This specimen likes to observe and question things. They will analyze your life and give you tips on how to live it. While some times this is welcome, other times - not so much. They tend to have a psychological explanation for everything and any experiment that failed tends to be due to ’psychological factors’ (aka human error…. aka we fucked up). Never too low on advice, they will be a great comfort to you if you actually want to listen to them. This specimen is great to have when you are looking at chain emails as they will be able to tell you what times the letter is for real or it’s a fake. We are our own psychologists at times then ;) . 

 I don’t feel like I have anything to add for this image.

———————————  

 Mature (Brainus Presentus)

-Gender: I see more female, but that might be coincidence?
-Appearance: Full of life experience.
-Noise level: Low when it needs to be.
-Distraction level: None.
-Seating arrangements:  Varies but mainly front.
-Annoyance factor:
*General student cohort: 1 (except for the gunners/premeds/competitives who just see them as competition…. their annoyance factor on them is 679 trillion like everyone else)
*Lecturers: 1
-Prevalence: They pop up from time to time.
-Aeroplane throwing at their head: Now now, we are not in high school!
-Other features: They tend to know what’s going on. Experience pays of.
-Survival rate: They don’t tend to fail so they go right through in UNI.
-Similar species: Don’t know?
-General description: Well you know who they are. Older than the general student population, these individuals decided all of a sudden that they want to go to UNI so they can enhance their education, get a better job or experience more experiences. They might have done a degree previously, held a job for a long period of time or came out of nowhere and decided to take a university degree. You have to admire them even attempting university and in the end I am sure it pays of for them. I just know that if I was their age I would not have had the guts to take university on. I would stick with whatever job my degree will get me and stick to it in a monotonous fashion. As you can see I have zero life experience compared to others. Hmm maybe I should go do some volunteering in Zanzibar.

OK OK NOT THAT OLD!

Phew, that list is now done. Part 3/3 soon to follow which will include more of your university favorites. Which ones will that include? I will keep you posted.

 So are there people like this in your uni?  I would love to hear of other variations that I have not mentioned yet!

Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other. - Walter Elliott

That’s right, the title says it all! I have now attained 1000 viewers on my pathetic excuse of a blog! Woah this calls for celebrations. I seriously did not expect it to go past 10 people after 2 months so this is quite a surprise to me!

So to celebrate this achievement, I shall dedicate this entire blog post to YOU the viewer! Yup that’s right all one thousand of you will be given a big THANK YOU message at the conclusion of this blog to show my vast vast appreciation.

So here goes:

 Wan touzand

From the bottom of my heart I want to take this opportunity in regards to all 1000 viewers out there….

WAIT ONE SECOND!

The list needs to be trimmed down and re organized. Firstly out of those 1000 individuals 298 don’t exist! What? How can they not exist? Well that is according to this link they don’t and wordpress.com does funky stuff with the stats re inflating them. OK OK that’s fine, I won’t give up on this minor setback:

Pootie tanging? Scary Movie 4 ref? what?

To all 702 real and living individual viewers out there I just wanted to say…

WAIT JUST A MINUTE HERE!

Actually, now that I think about it, that number above is wrong as well. I just remembered about all the times I actually access my wordpress blog from university and there are times that I forget to log on! So that brings the total number of viewers EXCLUDING me to um… 394 (What I like my own creation no matter how much it sucks ). But it’s OK that still leaves me plenty of people to be grateful for:

Would you buy the above number for $484 bucks + P&H? Word…. er I mean… Number….

So then; to all 394 viewers out there that don’t include me and do actually exist..

 Wait wait wait wait…. To be fair now, not everyone deserves thanks. I mean think about it. Some people came here because it was ‘their job’ to come here. Look at all those sidebar widgets and blog directories and all the other useless crap on the side of my blog. For a lot of them, I had to actually sign up, wait for someone from their copany to pop in and make sure my blog doesn’t consist of child molestation or spam before I get added to their list. Ok that brings it down to 256 viewers.

Believe it or not, that is the final level of Pacman (Yup level 256).

Well then; to the select 256 viewers, that came here on a voluntary non-pay, non-job related basis, it is my honour to…

“Aaaaaaargh what now!”, the crowd (er invisible crowd)  is asking in a frustrated manner. There is another group of viewers that also need to be excluded. That’s right you know who I am talking about. The sploggers/scrappers and all relations to them (hosts/lawyers/judges etc checking up my site before they go about shutting their splog site down). This is fairly self explanatory so I will move on. OK now I am left with… Oh my… 143 people.

1″do not” 43… SORRY!

So to all 143 people out there that came here on their own will with no intentions..

STOP STOP STOP!!!!! You hear me? 

  or

There is ONE FINAL (haha yeah right) exception that I need to make. To be fair there has been a number of places where I have gone first (including wordpress forum) before they came to me. Yeah that’s right… So this actually brings down the correct value to 55 viewers. Schfifty five? You thought right haha!

But anyway: excluding all those that came here via Google searching for “old naked ladies” and “old lady taking a poop” among other disgusting things (I am sadly not joking , but to make fun out of them, I shall post a blog dedicated to all the randomness that comes my way!  ) This really brings down the value to:…………………………*drum roll*………

Thanks Charlie for the excellent drum roll. Please put your T-shirt back on now.

 -24  no wait, 23 INDIVIDUALS.

From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU all 23 viewers out there for stopping by. 

Looking forward on celebrating my next achievement of reaching 46 individual viewers that do really exist, exclude me, came here by accident while they were not getting paid, are living and not undead, are not involved with stealing my blog, came here before I saw their blog and didn’t get here while searching for something sexual on google. Boy does that narrow it down.

Peace out!

He that steals an egg will steal an ox. - Proverbs

Thought id give a bit of support to these guys by linking them so they can get as much exposure as possible. I am not usually the activist/protester type but I can feel their pain as my blog posts (which is not worth a cent but it’s the principal that counts) get stolen from time to time by sploggers/scrappers. In this situation though, these guys are having their artwork stolen and sold on a book for a $100 bucks. Far out. Anyway hopefully something productive can be reached. In the meantime there needs to be some worldwide legal system damn it.. (Wait they already have that? Really? You don’t say….) . Anyway check it out:

My illustrations, stolen and published in new book

Posted using ShareThis

Cheers!

Update: There has been two new developments on this situation described here and here. Glad that the event is working out!

It was Wednesday night. 9 pm. The last hour of the work night. It was me and another person acting out as check out chicks with a more experienced supervisor being in charge of us both. At the time she was out and about organizing magazines, cleaning shelves, all that kind of supervisor waste the time stuff. We were serving customers at the front with their items. The night was uneventful and time was spent chatting to the other individual or the friendly new security guard that happened to be staying in front of our registers (unlike previous idiots).

Then she entered the store. Well I didn’t know she was going to be trouble but what do I know? Wearing a bright blue top, this feral (Sukus stealis) came in with her environmentally friendly green bag. She got a little basket and went of to collect items for her to ‘purchase’. It got to about 9.30 and there happened to be a bit of a crowd at the check outs. All of a sudden the feral came out of nowhere (conveniently when it got busy). She had her ‘bulky’ environmentally friendly green bag with her and also a small basket with a number of average munchable items like chewing gum and chips and a drink or two from the freezer. She then made her move.

She leaves her basket on the end of the conveyor belt and while still carrying her green bag with a coat on top of it she exclaims:

‘Ah is there any place where I can find an ATM to take money out’

‘Uh you can do that when you pay…’ I said before she started walking briskly past the register. The alarm bell thingies went bonkers and both me and the security guard made a casual move.

‘Can I please check your bag mam’ I said and the security guard said something of his version.

They should renaim these to the ‘magic bags’. You can fit so bloody much. 

She panicked for half a second before peering outside through the window (looking for an ATM machine to play along with her bullshit story). She then went back to the end of the conveyor belt where her ‘munchable’ items were and placed the green bag on the ground. The feral got her mobile that apparently began to ring and commenced talking to herself to the ‘imaginary husband’ about coming to the store so that she can get money to pay for her items. I called the supervisor at that point and she began to walk a bit faster out of the store. By the time the supervisor came she was outside and went of with a dash to her car.

 So we decided to have a look at her green environmental shopping bag that she left behind. I have not seen my supervisors mouth open so widely before in my life. I kid you not, there was razorblades after razor blade after razor blade after razor blade after skin care product after skin care product after skin care product (Mach 3, Olay, think fucking expensive $$$ shit), after skin care product, after razor blade. 

this+

What you see above times 10 thousand…

……………. 

We interrupt this story for our daily:

POP QUIZ:

How much was that environmentally green bag worth including the contents of the said bag?

a). $50 (enough for her to cop a fine)

b). $200

c). $500

d). $750

e). $1000 or more

To submit your answer and win 10 MILLION PAPER clips, just text to 1800-SCAMS-R-US and you can be in the winning (or the loosing but we don’t tell you that). Call charges at $9.95 per 40 words, higher for mobile and international calls.

(Only applies when sending via mobile and the operators are in Bangladesh. Terms and conditions apply)

OK we are back. Turns out that the total sum was at least one thousand dollars. Yup that’s right, some feral tried to rob the store 1 grands worth of goods in one environmentally friendly plastic bag. If you felt a bit uncomfortable about using the term “DISGUSTING” before, now is a good time to put it into use.

DISGUSTING FERALS!!!!!!!

Seriously I was shocked. I have heard of stealing bread to feed your family and one legged goat but that is just disgusting! The manager got a good look at her via the cameras and now we need to keep an eye out for her in the future. I read in some blog somewhere that they are encouraging the NAME and SHAME option in their stores. Basically get a picture of the ferals and place them up around the store asking anyone for information about them to contact the police. Oh and anyone who says something like ‘privacy blahblahblah; can go to hell. Feral scum like this do not deserve privacy as they should follow the law like everyone else.

Gee my skin is feeling a bit scaly…. Id sure love a bit of Olay skin moisturizer… But due to my finances I would rather not spend 35 bucks on it. I know I will just take it for free… Boy am I a genius?

What’s the worst part of all of this? There are more serious cases that have occurred in different stores to different people involving more items worth more money and some of those thieves have actually succeeded with their theft. I am counting down the days of automation where you just walk in a store, pick all the items you want in a touchscreen, pay for the said items and all the items get thrown at you via a shoot/hole/compartment thingy. Until then, I guess we got to just keep punishing people and sending them to jail because they do not know the difference between right and wrong.

Run run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me….. I’m the feral man

Ah well, you get 3 square meals a day in prison and the social life would increase exponentially for some of the scum that go there…

 Rock on legal system and your many loop-holes!

Commitment unlocks the doors of imagination, allows vision, and gives us the “right stuff” to turn our dreams into reality. - James Womack

So today my blog turns 1 month. Wow, talk about commitment. No seriously, with reaching one month this makes me more committed than my:

1. Diet (mmmmm chicken) - I don’t know about you but Celery is the suck.
2. Assignments - I can not remember the last time I finished an assignment 3 or more days in advance.
3. Political stance - Liberal/Labor/Democrat/Republic/Moderate. Changes with each changing phase of the moon. Thank god I did not take politics.
4. Wikipedia - Confused with this? Let me explain. At one point in the past I got really nerdy and felt like signing up on Wikipedia from my UNI computers and decided to contribute to Wikipedia by writing articles and all that type of crap. Took 5 mins before I decided vandalizing an article about earth bacteria is so much more fun. The vandalism? I placed a cake recipe in between the article. HA HA the vandalism stayed on for 2 days and I got a big orange message saying if I do that again I will get banned. I guess I will stick to viewing Wikipedia.
   -Having said that, if you know a wikipedian, congratulate him for his efforts. I seriously do not know how they can write so much and put so much effort on some of those articles. Word!
5. Last girlfriend - Ugh lets not go there. (*cough one week cough*). Fun while it lasted I suppose
6. Treadmill. Did this for a good 3 weeks. I can’t remember what pulled me away from it, but it had something to do with fat, chicken and more fat :D.
7. Hate for my job. Deep down I love it and have lots of fun, minus all the verbal abuse by the feral’s.
8. Myspace - Got over it after almost a month. Facebook on the other hand is quite entertaining and actually went past the one month stage.
9. Blogger. - I would say something but some things are better left unsaid (er unwritten that is..)
10. Love for physics. *picture the chanting and picket signs* “Down with physics! Down with physics!” 

This pic doesn’t really serve a necessary purpose but I thought the sign was a bit random (IMF:Imperial Mother Fucker haha) and it is probably a good way for me to finish of.

ROCK ON bloggers! Will recap again in a month’s time… Unless I get over WordPress by then..Hmmm I hear Typepad is rocking.. (JUST KIDDING WordPress )

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.  - Mahatma Gandhi

“The doctors told me to quit for your sake; so I did” - My Dad

I was one year old. Obviously I remember very little of that time so it will be pointless to make random guesses from it. But I have been reminded countless times from older family friends and parents about how cute I was and all that sort of crap. I did all the standard things like attempt to walk and speak random words by imitating my parents, watch cartoons, clap my hands and cough and get sick.

My dad was a regular smoker by then. He had smoked for almost 20 years by the time I turned one (well he started from a young age) and it was the standard one pack a day routine. He smoked inside the house and didn’t really think much of it. He told me (when I was older) he never really thought of quitting and it was all natural of him to smoke. But then I got sick and kept on coughing. Possibly from an unrelated matter, possibly from all the second hand smoke, I don’t know to be honest. But they took me to the family doctor and the doctor did the standard things. So this family doc who has known my dad for a long time and has actually been telling my dad for a long time to quit smokingsaw the entire connection. There was a Peter Styvenson pack in my dad’s front shirt pocket and the doctor knew he had to make the move right now. It is either now, or there will never be another later.

“So your son has been coughing a lot lately I see” said the family doc.

“Yup” replied dad.

“Here are some antibiotics but there is also one thing I need you to do”

“What should I do?”

[Family doc gives long speech about second hand smoking, cancer and the importance of staying healthy]

“Done” said my dad.

So a few days after that my dad went cold turkey and stopped smoking. It is now about 20 years and he has not had a smoke since. Of course now he coughs his lungs out every morning or every time a bit of smoke enters the room (think of it as the miner’s canary) but apart from that he is doing OK. I mean that stuff is serious so there might be a case where something will happen down the track as he has smoked for so long before. But for the time being, we are staying positive and are hoping for the best.

*Tweep tweep*

So I (along with my other siblings) was fortunate enough to be brought up in a smoking free home. That should not automatically say we are super healthy as the air pollution is no different and that has been around since forever so we are not completely imm