Since our old rear projection TV just wasn’t cutting it anymore, my parents decided to buy a brand new Sony Bravia 46″ LCD TV. Now I must say it is an absolutely awesome TV, and it was had for a bargain price (thank you Woolworth’s’ staff sale). Due to me being a Woolworths staff member we were able to save about $500 off the lowest price around, which worked out to be about $700 the normal price and over $1200 of the Sony RRP. This was all thanks to a staff sale at Dick Smith on Thursday.

In other news I saw the Haileybury play which was pretty good, the venue officer did a fantastic job with the whole venue thing and the actors were certainly on or a little bit above average, so overall yet another good production from Haileybury. So thats about all thats happened in my life since the last post, work hasn’t been any different than usual and nothing particularly exciting has happened apart from that.

As some of you already know, my current bank the ANZ has increasingly frustrated me through poor service, high fees and lack of ATM’s in the places I go most often. So after looking at all the ‘Big 4′ banks (NAB, Commonwealth, ANZ and Westpac) I decided to go with Citibank (which is one of the largest banks in the world). Pretty much it came down to Bendigo Bank and Citibank, but since I couldn’t make sense of Bendigo Banks fees I opted for Citibank which offers me unlimited withdrawals from any ATM in Australia for $5 per month which means I wont be hit with those stupid fees for using non-ANZ ATM’s anymore I also get all the usual stuff like Visa Debit Card etc (something the ANZ requires a separate account for which costs an extra $6 a month).

In other news I have been having car troubles yet again today, which meant I didn’t go to uni or work hence I actually get a night off.

Today has been one of those days where things that happened this morning seem like they were months ago. One thing that has been keeping me very busy is University assignments, which of course seem to be all due in the same week. Although I must admit I am enjoying the work, its much more interesting than anything I have previously done. For Sociology we had to watch the documentary "7 UP" which some of you may know is the first installment of a series that documents the life of 14 people from age 7, it is filmed every 7 years with the most recent installment "49 UP" being released in 2005.

One of the things that struck me about the series is that it was so easy (for most of them) to see where they were going in life. Nearly all of them followed the pattern predicted and it made me wonder what can people see about me? Where do they predict I’m headed? One of the surprising cases in this series is that of Neil, who at age 7, is articulate, intelligent and seems to have a bright future, now I wont spoil it for you but where he ends up at age 49 and more important how he got there is completely different to what could of been predicted.

I have recently been thinking about where I want to be in 5 years, admittedly I am still very undecided. Luckily I am doing a very general degree that leaves many doors open. Although one thought I have been toying with is getting into the IT field, it’s something I enjoy and am moderately good at. A few years ago I made the decision not to follow the IT path any further (ie at a VCE or Tertiary level) and I have recently been left thinking whether that was a mistake. Hopefully I can make a decision soon enough since while I am doing my degree there are many opportunities to study IT at a tertiary level.

Well as some of you already know my recent house moving has meant that running network cable to connect my computer to the internet is no longer feasible. So on Thursday night I went and purchased a Netgear wireless card for my desktop computer. So after setting it all up on Saturday afternoon I found that I could receive very little wireless signal. So after testing the signal with the laptop I found that I should be getting a strong signal. So basically I concluded that it was the Netgear wireless card that was the problem, so I returned the card back to JB Hi-Fi who gave me a refund (now try and get that on ebay) and then proceeded to give me a discount on the D-Link card which made it roughly the same price as the Netgear one. So the D-Link card is working very well (with an “Excellent” wireless signal) and I strongly discourage anyone from buying a Netgear product (look them up on the internet, they have nothing but bad reviews, especially the product I purchased) and I would certainly encourage people to shop at JB Hi-Fi who have been nothing but understanding and helpful through this whole ordeal and it is their service (particularly when their is a problem) that makes me shop at their store rather than saving a few dollars by going on eBay (which in this case would have cost me money).

Today was surprisingly busy with the whole moving and all. I also had to head down to work to sort out shifts etc, but at least it’s all sorted. After running back and forwards and driving all over the place I went out for the monthly dinner with, well the people that turn up every month (I have no control over these things). So anyway that was relatively exciting. Apart from that not much has been happening, except of course the fact that the Year 12 magazine is finally printed and ready to be posted (about time!!!).

Well it seems my rather long break is coming to a close and in its place will be the demands of Uni and work. I am looking forward to it since at the moment I have almost nothing to do, it will be good to be busy again not too mention productive as well. Today I was at Monash for their “this is a lecture, this is a tutorial” speech thingy which wasn’t particularly exciting. I will be heading down to Haileybury again tomorrow to work on these last stages of the magazine (looking forward to it being all over). Apart from that there’s not much else to report on.

Yes we all fondly remember these wonderful breakfast treats. Unfortunately in 2005 the Kellog’s  company decided to put profits before people and Pop Tarts were removed from the Australian market. So imagine my pleasure when I was walking through David Jones’ Foodhall and saw these wonderful pieces of heaven in pastry imported direct from the USA. So tomorrow morning I will be opening those wonderful silver bags and having Pop Tarts for breakfast.

NOTE: No I haven’t gone nuts.

There was once a time in my life where my parents would pay for anything I needed; clothing, food, entertainment; everything. However recently there has been an alarming trend, my parents pay for less, yet I require more. There are certain things that you never really think about until you receive the bill for them, for example car insurance, car registration, car repairs, gas (for the car), and sometimes even car parking (picking up a trend?). Add this all together with things like alcohol (admittedly a non-essential but still important), Uni textbooks (seriously, $90 for a 75 page book, someones having a laugh at my expense) and after all this your once healthy account balance is not so healthy and your left wondering whether you will have enough money in the account to pay for the account service fee (which if there isn’t you ironically get charged another excessive fee because the bank had to borrow money off itself to give to itself). So is there an easy solution to this problem? well of course there is, get a job (one that is more than 1 day a week that is) which is something that is being worked upon as we, well I, speak.

Over the last few days, I have been doing a ’spring clean’ (I’m well aware of the fact that it is summer). Basically we have been throwing anything that isn’t completely necessary which is pretty much everything. We have managed to fill a skip and then some full of junk collected over the last 15 years. Some items have included 3 computers, 2 fax machines, 2 printers, roughly 500 books, a couple thousand sheets of paper, old clothing, 100+ CD’s, walkmans, remote control cars, 3 gameboys + games and many other knick knacks. I’m amazed at the amount of junk that I/we have collected over the years.

In other news Pat got his probationary license after failing the first time (in the VicRoads carpark), so congratulations to Pat.

Well 2007 has finally ended and what a year it has been. It amazes me just how fast 2007 went, it seems like it was only yesterday that I was recapping 2006. So here’s what happened in my life in 2007.

• Turned 18 (probably the biggest thing to happen)
• Subsequently went to Crown and a great time was had by all (you all know the story)
• Got my license (again a very big thing)
• Began, and successfully completed Year 12
• Graduated from Haileybury.
• Went to the Year 12 Formal
• My Great Grandmother passed away
• Had a fantastic year as a School Prefect and Vice Captain of Editorial
• Bought an iPod (who’d of thought!)
• Also bought a GPS (yeah I know it was only a couple of days ago but it was a highlight of 2007)
• Went to the Boxing Day Test
• Drastically improved this blog by getting a domain name, a host and moving it to the Wordpress platform
• Went to Sydney to visit my brother and see the city (twice)
• Went down to Phillip Island for ’schoolies’
• Saw the school play ‘Inheritance’
• Saw the school musical ‘Fame’
• Saw the Castlefield musical “A High School Musical” (Luke also went to see it as he “received” tickets for his birthday)
• Applied for University, and received my VCE results.

So that’s 2007 in review, I wish everyone a happy new year and I look forward to recapping what I hope will be a wonderful 2008.