On Friday night, James, Nick, Luke, Christiaan and myself went to Southland to watch the new Indiana Jones film. Naturally I was a little disappointed with the movie as it really lacked that Indiana Jones feel to it. It just seemed to me that they filmed a movie and suddenly at the last minute decided to call it Indiana Jones. I also thought the storyline was just a tad bit more far fetched than the first ones (admittedly they weren’t exactly a reality series but this movie is definitely more ‘out there’). Overall though I wasn’t as disappointed as I thought I would be so thats certainly a bonus.

In other news I have had work everyday since Friday which has just been a whole lot of fun. But it least it gives me money to spend

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).

Well tonight I went and saw the Haileybury Year 10 play. I was actually pretty impressed with the acting and overall how the play was presented. Children of the Black Skirt is a very dark play about an orphanage and the children who once were in it. The technical aspect of the show was “acceptable”, with no major mistakes being made. Overall it was certainly worth the $5 for the ticket and I look forward to seeing some of the Year 10 actors in future performances.

Well today I went out and finally bought myself a GPS. Since I wanted a simple unit without all the bells and whistles I opted for the TomTom ONE Version 3. It is a nice little unit, and after giving it a bit of a run today I am very impressed. In other news I also went to the second day of the Boxing Day Test which was good, although India’s excessive caution practically brought the game to a stand still.

Well Newlands and Edrington have had both their speech nights and they went off without a hitch. Of course the usual suspects have simply recycled their speeches and simply replaced the precinct name. Last night I had the priveledge to read out some prizes for the Edrington speech night, of course the food before hand was good with the whole plate of the ‘duck things’ being polished off by Mr. Twist and myself. So overall this week hasn’t been that exciting and tomorrow will mark the end of my official duties for the school when Derrick Ha speaks at Newlands for the last time.

Well my wonderful week in Sydney ended today which is rather sad, but it’s good to be home. The flight back was interesting as I sat behind a couple of people (executives etc) from Wesfarmers (the people buying Coles). Anyway I’ve decided to put on this blog what I did each day before I forget so that in a couple of years I can remember it all (I don’t actually expect you to care, its merely for my own benefit)

Monday: Flew to Sydney on QF430, Visited MaCarthur Square Shopping Centre

Tuesday: Went into the Sydney CBD and had a look at the Pitt Street Mall, and around the CBD.

Wednesday: Went to Homebush, then made my way to North Sydney and walked back to Sydney across the Harbour Bridge. Went up to Pylon Lookout at the bridge which gave awesome views of Sydney and the harbour.

Thursday: Went to Bondi beach and then made my way back through Kings Cross (a very seedy place).

Friday: Went to the top of Sydney tower which gave me a 360 degree view of Sydney (well worth the entrance fee if your ever in Sydney), then made my way back down to earth and walked through Hyde Park and saw the barracks, then made my way north along Macquarie St and walked to the Opera House via the Botanical Gardens. Walked around the Opera House and got some awesome photos of both the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. Then Friday night went out to Club 209.

Saturday: Took the ferry to Manly, then went to North Head (the northern opening of the harbour) which afforded some awesome views of Sydney and the harbour.

Sunday: Had a walk around The Rocks and Circular Quay.

Monday: Flew back to Melbourne on QF 419.

In other news I got my phone and VOIP adapter today, anyway its with MyNetFone and costs me $0 per month with a free DID (normal phone number). It offers me 10c untimed national calls, 15c per minute calls to mobiles and from 1.9c per minute international (very handy for calling people I know overseas). The reason I got a VOIP service was to try and cut down on my mobile usage and it was a really awesome offer (via Whirlpool). I was very glad that I made the order in time (offer ended last Friday) because the ANZ took ages in issuing me with my Visa Debit Card (benefit of VISA without the debt!!!).

Today I finally cracked it with my iRiver and it’s constant turning off and shaking. So this afternoon I went up to JB Hi-Fi at Chadstone, I ended up walking out with a 30 GB iPod as well as some AV accessories. All in all my excursion up to JB cost me over $600 as I also bought some DVD’s and some CD’s (haven’t quite adopted iTunes yet). However my iTunes library has synced and I’m listening to my new iPod in all its glory and I must say I think it sounds way better than my old iRiver and the video quality is much better as well. I also like the dock, which seems to fit with the iPod much better than my iRiver dock ever did with the H340. Well I’m off now to rip some of my new cd’s to iTunes.

Today was one of those very interesting days that ensured I didn’t have a moment of free time (except for the time I spent at the cafe). After the usual mundane double math, I headed over to the office to ask scotty to pay for something. In the end he did which was good as I wasn’t expecting him to go for it.

I then headed to the hall only to discover that certain staff had decided that the only “usable” computer in the school was now to be only used by those ” that need to be using it”. So I went and hassled some other staff to convince them to provide an Editorial computer where we can actually sort through the photos without students constantly coming up to us and asking for a copy (the answer to that question is absolutely no), anyway in short lawso said that if I can find a spot and the money then yeah not a problem but until then I will have to resort to using his computer or another private computer.

So I then went and bitched to IT, which later led to me having to apologise to IT. After that I cracked the shits with a certain junior precinct and then went to PD, of which I spent the entire time sitting there bored. During lunch I had a high powered leadership meeting which was were I was told to apologise to IT and then spent the rest of the time sitting at the cafe contemplating how in the world I could get a copy of a completed maths assignment to cheat off (Luke initially promised one but then disappeared for the rest of the day).

I have been stupidly busy the last week, without even a moment to myself and unfortunately this won’t change for the next couple of weeks. I did however manage to dig up a photo of the Kindergarten class of 1994, which in case you didn’t know is the year the current year 12’s were in kindergarten. Anyway I now have a photo of Luke when he was like 4, as well as some other year 12’s which is pretty funny. I would post it however I would get in a lot of trouble from the school for doing so, so if you want a copy and go to Haileybury I can send it to you via school email. If you don’t go to (or work at) Haileybury then I can’t help you.

The Year 12 magazine has been coming along nicely, and we should actually start putting the content on pages soon. Also in between all this I managed to get a SAC done, and have multiple coming up fast, as well as speeches at each precinct, and literally hundreds of meetings and countless luncheons. Also apparently the play went well last night, and is coming along well tonight (I was just talking to a crew member on MSN). So well done to you guys. And finally I’m beginning to become cynical of Connex like Pant, you see this morning I was stuck at Hughesdale station for 90 minutes while a train was derailed on one of  four tracks at Oakleigh. During this time no alternative arrangements were made in regards to buses, no announcements, no nothing, just an increasingly full platform.