why wy?

Footy training on saturday was in The Basin, which is a strange name for a town, but fitting because IT RAINS THERE ALL THE TIME. It's way out in whoop whoop (aka ulu), near the dandenong ranges, which is also so far away that it has its own weather system (10 degrees colder). Granted, it's very beautiful, green hills with the tops in cloud, colours of autumn, flocks of white parrots or cockatoos, but the view is best appreciated from a heated tour bus.

I was half-watching a romanticised miniseries on Napoleon (isabella rossellini as josephine, 'nuff said) when my housemate came home and remarked on how great it would be to live in that day and age. Chiefly, her reasons were the men back then were gentlemen and chivalry was upheld.

Five reasons why I would not want to live in the 18th century
1- People didn't bathe. (My housemate didn't believe me.)
2- Sanitation was non-existent. Okay, I'm guessing here, but feel free to correct me.
3- The Internet.
4- I'm not sure if it was chivalry or chauvinism that was upheld.
5- Corsets.

I have a new haircut, courtesty of puck, joe and the No.8 Remington clipper. For all his claims he was doing it for the entertainment value, Joe is a perfectionist when it comes to errant strands of hair. The cut is very short - we were shooting for early faye wong - and currently hidden because winter arrived yesterday. For the record, I am wearing a beanie, not a shrunken tea cosy.

you can never have too much chocolate, they say, but I think when you buy a 1.5kg, factory outlet, unmarked box of assorted sweeties for $20, it's pretty close.

The Star Wars fans headed to the movies over the weekend, and the cheap fans like me waited for half-price movie tuesday. So it didn't suck, although I was the only one that laughed when they said, set coordinates for planet mustafa, where the dahl is cheap and you can get marsala tea (piping hot too!) at 4am.

(spoiler warning) Continuty aside, I found myself asking these questions:
- Why would anyone want to be a sith apprentice? You never know when you are going to be replaced or backstabbed (not literally). Because there can be only two - a master and apprentice. Then again, why teach if you are a sith lord? What's to stop your sneaky apprentice from making sushi of you in your sleep? Sure, they get to wear black, which goes with more things than weathered brown, but there's not much in terms of career prospects. If you survive long enough to get the top job, you've got to constantly look over your back. And if you were really trying to spread the dark side like kaya on warm toast, wouldn't taking more students do the trick instead of this one-to-one training business? Masters in Sith (correspondence courses available).

- Was being under the empire all that bad? There was no more war, but I think building the death star would have hiked up taxes, and that's always bad. On the radio (yes, I started listening to AM) I heard a german woman being interviewed, she had written a cookbook on wartime dishes, including cooking with weeds.

- Was everyone really polite, pretending not to notice that padme was about to pop? The look of shock on everyone's faces... Ooh, she was pregnant under all those flouncy dresses? And we thought she was putting on weight...

- I'm not convinced the good side of the force is that far from the dark. The dark side stands for anger, the lust for power and poor dental hygiene. The good side stands for a zenlike calm, being free of attachments and good skin (even yoda looks good for a 800 year old). At times it seems like Catholicism, you can convert at last minute and be saved eg Darth Vader's death scene. So why wipe out the Sith (all two of them)? I give you missionary jedi - the new force in religion.

- Why was it always Count Dooku, not darth dooku? Okay, that sounds really dumb, question answered. Then again, maybe it is a reference to count dracula...

- Then again, the jedi are elitist. I'm just saying that because they kicked me out of the school and all I got was a lousy t-shirt.

And if you haven't yet, check out www.storewars.com. chew-brocoli rocks!

There was a documentary on SBS last night, about a Jewish couple who had 17 children. All their own, which is more than enough to make your own football team, plus reserves, trainers and a coach. It's very sad, the thought that even if I got the baby factory started right this minute, I would be menopausal before I hit no.17. So much for increasing (or diluting) the brain pool.

I know I already have a quote for the week, this is for next week:
"The prevailing philosophy is that we each stand on our own feet; so I take it that the adjunct to that is that we each sit on our own bottoms - and don't expect the state to mollycoddle them!" - Dr Thomson, chief advisor to the British civil service, who resisted a peitition to switch from hard toliet paper to a softer sort.

It's from neil gaiman's blog, and so is this one about the top 50 things to eat. I'm all for the numbered roast duck.

I've just realised that I have three weeks to exams, not two. Which is a good thing, it could have been the other way around. Which means I can turn down the panic knob by 50%, relax a little, sip my tea, even watch star wars.

Overheard in class: One more night of sleep, and my life will be complete.

I was doing anatomy revision the other day, and I was looking at a container with a brain, when I realised I had just come full circle. We studied the Brains in a Vat argument in philosophy once, and here I am, studying the structure of the brain, which happens to be floating in a vat of preserving fluid. Not quite Keanu Reeves (The central idea in The Matrix is similiar). More on the argument can be found here and here.

There's a potentially spoofable article on today on how polytechnics are going to be offering courses related to the new casinos. Shall I take Cutting The Cards 101 or Advanced Probabilty 103?

Quote of the week:
"Don't issue thunderbolts of wisdom from the top of Mount Olympus. Ultimately, this is not between me and the government, it's between me and the public."
Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn, saying the Singapore government's direct involvement in designing the city-state's first two casinos was "unsophisticated".

choice quotes from tezza:
On big brother host greta killeen
"She's not ugly, she's hideous."
"She looks like a transvestite going through chemo."
"You can't deny genius." *

He's wit run Wilde.
*Of course, it turns out that you can deny genius chocolate, especially when genius takes 30 seconds more to catch on to the joke.

Following on from the previous post, there's a funny list on how to have a cheap wedding here (off tomorrow.sg). Straight-forward stuff. How to have a cheap wedding that looks expensive, that I want to know.

and just quickly...
Great read at writer's block, on the AcidFlask issue and the larger issue of what a scholar should be, and his/her obligations if any. I held off posting about it, since I found out about it rather late, but it does raise worrying questions about whether you own your blog or not. To summarise (hopefully accurately), a government scholar made personal racist comments on his blog but no action was taken; two other scholar/bloggers made comments about government-linked companies and they were "invited for tea", which either means you have a future career in politics or are in major trouble. One of them, AcidFlask, was threatened with legal action and shut his site down. He is a former scholar not linked to the organisation which wanted to sue him, so I think he was just making a personal comment that got picked up. Since the site has been taken down, there is no way to know what was found offensive or the context in which it was made.

There is a tendency for me to see my blog as my personal rant and rave space, so yes, I have sounded off about bad service, bad days at work/school, people I wouldn't save from the titanic etc. But when does a personal experience become a public one? If a tree falls in the forest...

And when you think about it, a blog is more like a literary webcam. (At least I'm trying for literate.) And to stretch the analogy further, you know how you're not allowed to walk around naked in your house in Singapore? Now, I feel like people in Singapore have got a massive telescope and they can tell if I'm walking around naked in Melbourne. (BTW, answer is no - too cold.)

Speaking of the naked truth, my blog buddy puck has moved out on his own. Even though it was a one-post fling, it was fun while it lasted. I'll miss ya.

Congrats to Ak and tracy, khanz and joanne, for all the planning and courage it takes to finally pop the question, and the girls for saying yes.

I wrote this quote out for my significiant other before I left, copying it from my computer, which i typed from a biography. Then I deleted the quote on my computer by mistake. So, in a nice reversal, joe had to type in the quote from my scribbled note and email it back to me... here it is, love eloquently put.

I want to take you to into the very centre of my being, and to reach myself into the centre of yours. I want to know and be known, to share happiness and pain...I want to
fill your life with joy in great things and small, to find out all that gives you delight, to give your mind the freedom of great spaces and your spirit the happiness of growth into the things that reach out into infinity.
- bertrand russell, in a love letter to one of his many loves.

My great love arrives in six days time (joe, not bertie).

I heard Michael Jackson on the radio driving to school today, and it was suddenly 1985 for me, sitting in front of the tv watching him swish on a lighted disco floor that reminded me of hopscotch. I remember singing along, and not knowing what he was talking about biologically when he sang - but the kid is not my son. Now, it's 2005, puck has called me auntie (he swears it was in jest), adding to the list of short-but-getting-taller biologically-related folk already calling me that. It's a slow slide I tell you, I'd rather watch Jamie Oliver and the Iron Chef over the OC, Summerland, American Idol. Before you know it, I'll be knee-deep in soppy rom coms starring patrick swayze, wearing clothes from OG or Oriental Departmental Store.

This goes out to the women who have embraced auntie-dom proudly, so don't forget to call your mom tomorrow.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a must-watch. Especially Marvin, the depressed robot. Okay, back to the anatomy books. Regular blogging will commence when I need to procrastinate.