tanguyen's Xanga

Viva la eBay...

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:03:00 GMT

Woah. Just fckn woah. I like it how winning bidder must pay within "3 days after the end of the auction". I already felt like a douchebag going up to the bank and asking them for "5300 dollars... cash", but then again, I felt like more of a douchebag when I suggested them put it in some sort of envelope to put it in, rather than put it in my wallet, or carry it in my hands around Fairfield CBD. But 21 million. Woah.

Tan.N

Viva la end of semester exams

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:48:18 GMT

Just blogging to show that I am still alive. Barely.

In the middle of my four day stuvac that the uni has allocated to us, with the first exam being this friday. I'm not really going at the rate I want to because my goal for these exams is that the day before the exam, I don't want to have to learn anything new. That being said, there are still some things I need to fine tune for my friday exam and in actual fact, I haven't actually picked up anything in regards to the friday exam yes. Uh oh.

Schedule events are as follows:

This Friday: Omnometry Prac exam. We basically have to "be" an omnometrist, so all that fricken "which is better, one or two" stuff, having a "play act" with the examiner on how to take a history and symptoms (oh you said your vision is blurry? How long has it been like this for? When does it occur most of the time? Do you like chocolate mud cake? How old are your glasses?) There's also some toywork we have to do i.e. Use the instruments, and a "slide exam", where they show up slides of sick eyes and we gotta write down what we think about them blah blah. Oh, and we gotta administer those colour vision/blind tests. I'm quite screwed for that.

This Saturday: Physiology Exam. The only thing I don't like about Saturday exams is the fact that the buses are not as frequent to the uni as I would like. So you have to get tehre super early as buses come every 15-30 minutes... which reminds me of the old 825 Greenfield Park way too much. I'm slowly getting ready for this but some of the stuff is really, scratchy. I'd love a solid understanding but some of the stuff feels a bit like a sieve to me.

Two days away Monday: Omnometry Prac exam. What we didn't do/complete on Friday, will be done today. The funny thing for these prac exams is that we actually have to dress up in "business attire", so pretty much what we have to wear down in the clinic. So i gotta put on that suit and shirt and tie stuff and go to uni, knowing, "I'm going to do an exam." Normally I'm most comfortable sitting exams in two types of clothes: Trashy comfortable clothes like trackies and sweatshirts, or the Hurlstone school uniform. Considering I sat probably six years worth of exams in that uniform, you'd imagine I've quite adapted to them.

That following Friday: Vision Science. Not too afraid about this exam. It's purely concept based and you can predict what questions they're going to ask, seeing as it's concept based. We just had an exam on this subject on the last day of uni, which covered half the content, and only a quick revision will bring that information from the dead. Almost zombie like I must say. The other half of the content has been learnt already as well, it's trapped in the depths of my memory somewhere so hopefully it doesn't take too much effort to bring back out. Don't mind the subject at all really, it's just a shame that what you know doesn't really reflect in the quality of your extended responses.

Monday, not the Monday four days ago which had the prac exam, but the Monday going in the other direction, you know, three days away from that Friday, but not the Friday where we had the prac exam either... gahhhhh: Omnometry: You thought you slayed the beast in the prac exams (which is worth 40% of the entire course) Then think again! There's the theory paper which is basically two hours worth of trick questions, WTF!?'s and brain fckers. I showed Chris some of the questions they ask in our omnom exams and he had that really screwed up face that says "woah that's fcked", but I don't mean the screwed up face he puts on whenever he's happy. This exam is just a doozy, you can study as hard as you want but it is never enough. That carrot is always in front of you, but you can never reach it.

Thursday: Occular Diseases: Subject speaks for itself. I have not really touched any of the work. The whole plan was to try and get physiology out of the way today (which doesn't look like it's going to happen at this rate) so I can quickly knock off a couple of OccDis. lectures. Otherwise it'd be a four day study mayhem from Monday-Wednesday night. Which I don't feel like is enough.

So that's my plan out in the open there. All exams are two hours long (I don't know how I'd cope if they were three hours long a la HSC [good luck to the folkskies who are sitting for them by the way]). I'll survive it all no doubt about it, but what is in limbo is how unscathed I am by the end of it.

Tan.N

Viva la life hacks

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:35:16 GMT

Welcome to the world of Omnometry. There are several of you (possibly just ONE person [you know who you are]) who will understand the principles behind this but this is for the friends who have parted ways, in terms of fields of profession.

Welcome to the world of Omnometry! What I want you to do is to stare at the cross in the middle of the pink circle. I want you to make sure you STARE at it, don't look away, make sure you motivate yourself so that your eyes don't stray anywhere else. Just look at that cross, that's all I'm asking for you to do. Don't move your head around, sit still and concentrate and focus. You might be pleasantly surprised. No tricks or gimmicks here.

Welcome to the world of Omnometry!

Tan.N

Viva la power of the truest man

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:39:25 GMT

Never have I wanted or tried to let someone down. I've always tried to be true to every word and true to every expectation.

And never has so much expectation has been bestowed upon me, so much blind investment. There is absolutely no way I will let them down ... it'd be an absolute breach of trust. Have I ever had any more motivation in my life?

Tan.N

Viva la Oktoberfest

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:28:10 GMT

And no, I didn't enjoy it just because it's the largest uni pissup in Sydney.

Ten Things I Did At The Oktoberfest

Dressed up in a Lederhosen using stuff I had alraedy so I didn't have to spend money on anything. I'll probably invest in a Lederhosen hat though for next year. Plus nearing the end of the night, my dresswear quickly escalated to something with a homosexual tinge and quite frighteningly, more randoms decided to give a hello and take their photo with me. Mark of a fun night in my respects
Met up with the randomest Hurlstonians and got some good chill time with them. Didn't expect to see Nafan there and we were both pretty fcking pleased to see each other.Even got to see Shazza, Katarina and a couple of the kiddies in the grade below. There were other Hurlstonians as well and I think it's definitely mutual that we are very glad whenever we see one another... There's a certain aspect that all Hurlstonians have (well the 07'ers anyway) that you don't quite get, or even get close to replicating, with new friends. It's good to be home I guess.
Managed to survive a swarming mass of people in a bar queue whilst trying to walk out with three cups of beer. I got to the front of the line (which by then was more of a moshpit sort of nature) and asked for four beers. The bartender gave me a worried look so then I decreased the load to three beers. Having got three beers, I picked them up and literally had nowhere to go. Everyone behind me was yelling "AWW FCK... He's got beer... Turn around mate.. you can do it... Walk backwards". I inched around til I was facing the direction of travel and slowly traversed. Everyone watched on and patted me on the back for my courage and determination, and I made it out with all the beers in tact. A couple of the folks actually applauded. I love stranger love.
Started a revolution in the port-a-loo line. I was busting like fck, with my body begging to produce a natriuresis (or a dilute urination for those playing at home) so I was doing the busting dance (and you'd be forgiven if you thought I was doing the Lederhosen, being dressed up in the Lederhosen and all). I saw the guy behind me busting as well so we had a conversation about our wanting need to urinate. So I told him, "you know what, I've got your back, not as in I'll pee in your back, but I"m gonna try and get you into that toilet as fast as I can." I told everyone all the men in the line before me "not to flush", because we need to save time and get in and out for the brothers in line. I asked a girl in front of me if she was pissing or shitting, she said "pissing", I said "don't flush please". She went in, came out quite quickly, I did my job as quickly as I can, and the guy behind me was impressed that i did it quickly. "Told ya I was looking out for you mate."
Had an immense amount of fun without having to resort to plentiful amounts of alcohol. Too much of it pretty much bogs you down and tires you so you end up sitting there moping around. Drink to be social, but don't drink to turn anti-social I say.
Continued on with the party even though it was over. I went over to the Rege after I heard a couple of friends were there and finally got what I wanted - a night out with an actual conversation.
Got let into the pub by the security guards. Why was that interesting? The pub was literally full to the brim because basically anyone who didn't get let into the Oktoberfest all scrambled to the local pub. There was a huge line outside for the pub and it got to the point where the guards only let in girls, they even got girls from near the back of the line to come up and in. Whilst they were picking out girls to let in, one of the guards had a look at me, liked the costume, and told me to go in as well. I gave the "WTF!?" face, seeing as I was quite stunned by the gesture, to which he responded with a more assertive "Get the fck in" hand gesture. I did as I was told.
Bumped into moooooore Hurlstonians in there, this time the boarders. Not only that, they group molested me with their hands all over my body, whilst yelling to me "HOW ARE MY EYES TAAN!?"
Had McDonalds twice.. First for lunch before the Oktoberfest, second for dinner after the Oktoberfest. My body will pay for this.
Became a squatter and slept in the college via a friend. Knowing that a bed (or really, a doona that was made into a bed and a sleeping bag for a blanket) was just five minuets away, and that I could wake up 10 minutes within the first class starting was effing awesome. I actually took a shower that night and it was sweet.. only problem was that I only brought one pair of undies. So what was the solution? Duh.. you flip them inside out. Yih.

Tan.N

Viva la surprises

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 10:09:48 GMT

This week was a fairly filling week. Whilst some old unwanted shadows did resurface, I have learnt to give them the "go away fck off". In fact, I'm finding that those shadows are rarely bothering me anymore because of the way I've adapted to avoiding them.

Omnom's calmed down a bit but that's meant to give you a chance to work at your own pace, and it seems that the best pace to work at is at a rushing pace. I'm coming to uni alot earlier than usual just to try and practise the whole omnom thing with anyone that's lying around. I haven't yet to make a full checklist and "cake mix" procedure of everything that needs to be done, and I get the feeling that if i get that done tonight, I'm going to be fairly set for the exam at the end of the semester. I worked out that the actual prac exam is worth 40% of the entire course this semester: and rightly so, these are skills that are absolutely vital for my professional life (and look at me, actually caring about what I'm going to be. How I've grown).

The set up for the exam is that we get paired with another second year student, and I'll get examined testing my partner, and then we'll do a swapskies and they get to test me. I was having a chitty chat with a friend and they asked that can't I just get the answers off my partner/friend but the thing is, this isn't the type of exam you'll realy want to wing. You might want to wing let's say, an agriculture exam about the reproductive system of the chicken, but maybe winging omnometric practice techniques isn't the best option to go for.

I know some people who are actually ducking into dead quiet OPSM practices to actually practise their skills on a weekend and while you might think that's acutally keen, I reckon it's a fairly smart idea. I might harass the OPSM folks at Wetherill Park, even though they've never met me before. SHould give them a ring at least as opposed to rocking up there with my instruments expecting to be let in and run the roost.

The whole week was centred around this weekend. Saturday was Thomas the Tank Engine's birthday... well not really. It's actually the anniversary of the opening of the Train Shed and we have festivities such as birthday cake, the fat controller payign us a visit (actually just the owner of the place dressed in a suit exactly like the fat controller, but he's actually fairly skinny) and birthday trains - we couple two trains together so that it can take twice as many carraiges and hence twice as many people for twice as many fun times. It was a shame the weather was lookign a bit damp throughout the day otherwise it would have been packed out.

That night we went over to Sir's house to surprise him for his birthday. I actually came a bit late and in the end, I entered the wrong house. The thing is, sir lives right next door to his parents house, and I actually entered his parents house with sir inside it. Knowing that it was meant to be a surprise party and all, and seeing sir right in front of me, I stupidly tried to act as if there was no such thing as a surprise party, but he redirected me into the correct house where everyone was. Luckily for me, the whole "surprise" process was already done.

And you know what, i acutally enjoyed myself there. For a while, I thought that I was becoming a bit too distant with the other staff there but it's actually good having a catch up with interesting, well mannered and engaging people. There was not one boring person in the room there. I even managed to have a good solid conversation abuot fricken STATISTICS. Whilst I only initially wanted to stay til around 10-ish, I stayed all the way until 11.30... I'm really getting along with the new breed of workers, the peeps from the grade below. Everyone's got their own story to tell and it's very enlightening when they open up and do actually tell it.

Didn't get to sleep until 1 o clock that night which was a fairly bad thing seeing as I had work again that following morning. Yes, I made myself work two days in a row at the Train Shed... I"ve never worked on SUnday before and it's always the busiest day out of the two weekend days... Plus it was still the whole Thomas' birthday celebrations thing so it was destined to be uber packed. Quite counter-intuitive seeing as every job I've heard people talk about, Sunday is always the dead day. However that morning, I got a text message saying that I didn't need to rock up to work due to the poor weather. Whilst work is good fun and all, I don't think I would have survived working a second day because I was so tired that morning.

Plus I got a random text message from a friend telling me she got home nice and safely., I don't think I was meant to receive that text message at all though, so being woken up at 3am by a text message that wasn't meant to be for me didn't make me very happy.

Hopefully this week, I'll start stabilising myself more for the omnom exams, as well as possibly making my stuvac task of studying a bit lighter and easier. But how easy is it these days to just break a promise?

Tan.N

Viva la mentality

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:41:06 GMT

It's been an entry that I've been meaning to do for a while now.

Truthfully, it almost brings me back to my drama days, circa year 11 and seeping into year 12. It was when I was doused with the many ideological and theatrical movements at the time. Dare I bring up Absurdist Theatre without a groan from those of you who were forced to endure it. How much longer do we have to wait for Godot you may ask? Not that much longer.

But lately, I've been living through some sort of disillusionment. Whilst it's more healthy if you live life with an optomistic view on life, it's sometimes more relieving to see failure and dissapointments around you when you undertake a more realistic view on life (or a pessimistic view on optomism?)

The ideology that I've applied onto what I see before me related to that Existential look on life: what truly is our purpose and is man still able to communicate with one another spiritually even though each man's motive is driven by their own selfish greed to be on top. I'm starting to question the motive of some people more often as there is a lot of cloud around what they truly aim for.

There's certainly a mentality that's going around that I am truly not supportive of. While it's all well and good for the people on the stage to act out the precedings, but I'm wondering if the characters truly want to be on the stage? Do they end up getting what they want or are they continuing the act because it's a show, or because the only certainty that exists is that nothing else is certain outside that theatre.

The relationships between the characters also raise alot of questions. Do they truly interact with one another or do they find themselves as characters who co-exist with each other because there's no other characters there. Can they actually generate interest amongst each other, or are they just relying on their laurels and spur of the moment improvisation? Do they actually engage the attention of the audience, or do they take them for granted? Would the personalities care should one of their own get taken out? Do they actually see a heirachy system within their own microcosm, and would they rather see some players of the game leave?

What saddens me is that the genre of the play is something I truly don't appreciate at all. They've absolutely forgotton about the fourth wall of theatre and are pretty much in it for themselves. There's no appreciation for the audience that come to watch, and the audience themselves know that this feeling is reciprocated. The mentality of the characters would surely end in their demise. It's easy, without the audience, there would be no theatre. Without the theatre, they would have no where to go and no certainty to define their direction. But the loss of the audience would not phase them or worry them now, because the players think that they can run the show themselves. Each entity relies on each other.

Plus, there's only a limited time where you can enjoy your time on stage. What's going to happen when the curtain comes down? I've seen it come down already and in the end, you've proven that you're just actors playing a character, rather than a character being themselves. The ecstacy and high of being on stage is only fulfilling when it happens, and the honeymoon period straight after it. The actor must have something to do with themselves once the play is over, otherwise life could get fairly empty. You can't always live for the stage, nor rely on the stage. Playing out an alter-reality on the stage is no quick fix to your problems once you're off of it. It's the mark of a truly suffering artist.

A play can't act out without direction. A character can't question themselves and change for the audience, but rather, for the other characters in the scene. The genre can possibly question and change the character, but only if the set and cast change along with it. It's all very complicated but it seems pretty simple in my mind.

I want a refund to my ticket.

Tan.N

Viva la dissapointments

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:26:50 GMT

My entire week has so far revolved around the course I've immersed myself with and the weather.

While it might be cute to think that I spent the last week hitting up the books for the optom (from here on in, referred to as Omnom) exam, it was actually quite the opposite. I feel so unmotivated, undriven. There's almost a fairly apathetic feel and by all means, I understand this is not healthy at all, considering how competitive and difficult the course and its content is. And while it's all good for me to say "oh, I gotta pull up my pants", there's no use making stupid little promises to get rid of the guilt. What we need is ACTION so no more promising bullshit. Just roll your sleeves up and get into it.

Speaking of the omnom exam, it was actually today. I had most of the long weekend to study for it but there wasn't anything very enlightening about learning it. With the previous stuff, I'd learn it and go "Oh wow that's quite interesting and quite intelligent that they've set it up like that" but with "colour vision tests" (tests for the colourblind) and several other omnometric techniques, it's more like a "so what". I need to have my interest engaged for me to give a shit about the content. When the converse holds true, like HSC English, I managed to convince and persuade myself that it was in fact interesting and in the end, it did engage my interest, but I certainly don't have enough time to try and convince making people read colourblind plates with hidden numbers all that interesting. Almost as interesting as watching paint try. Just as interesting as asking "is one or two better."

I've noticed that there is absolutely no way of making that sound interesting. You can be a comedian. You can be a terminally ill person. You can be monotonous. You can be boisterous. You can be a comedian. You can be Kevin Rudd. You just cannot make that sentence sound new, or refreshing, or exciting. While going through the processes such as "what line can you read now?" or "things might get a bit blurry", yes, some of your personality might be able to leak out and hopefully differentiate you from the other omnometrists (who surely are doing their own thing), but we all get simplified to the generic omnometrist when we get up to the, "ok looking at those rings, tell me what's better, one or two."

How many omnometrists does it take to change a light bulb?
One or two... One or two?

The weather has been quite dismal lately and as a result, I've resorted to dress more comfort i.e. Hurlstone trackies + some sort of shirt that could double as a shirt I mow the lawn with. Currently I'm wearing my year 6 Smithfield P.S. shirt... those shirts where you have all the names of the kids in year 6 on the back. Aww yih. I'm most likely going to sleep in it, and then wear it to uni tomorrow. All will be great.

With the amount of rain and themometer disengaging temperatures, work was fairly difficult on the weekend. I was lucky that I brought a jumper along (coupled with the other jumper that constantly resides in my car), I was still quite freezing. I resorted to wearing my workhat to keep my head warm, and wearing my sunnies so that the cold doesn't reach my eyes (and I only just realised how geekily omnometry styles it is, that I have to try and keep my fcking eyes warm). I mgiht consider bringing along gloves and a beanie next time I work.

There weren't that many punters on Saturday as families opted to stay at home with the kids. A family even came, hung around for five minutes waiting for the rain to subside, and then went home. What kept the place busy though was that there were two busloads (not simultaneously) of a Chinese community group. It was a shame that they didn't bring their kids along, as the whole purpose of the community group was to venture out to the "greater west" and see what's out there: not only were they ripping it up at the train shed but they dashed along to Lithgow and other places of sorts. But the adults (with an average age of around 40+) seemed to have enjoyed their short stay at the train shed, where they had a coffee and a ride on the trains. I even got to try out some of my chinese and it entertained some of them.

Got to see April Rose a couple of times during the long weekend and I think she's finally warmed to me. Sometimes the sister drops her off at our place so that she can do her own thing, and whilst my parents do enjoy cooing and giving her attention, there are times where April Rose dozes off so my parents leave her alone and let her do their own stuff. I went downstairs to fetch some lunch and saw that she was lying there all by herself sleeping, so I went up to her little baby rocker (that sounds so rock 'n roll actually) just to watch her sleep, and then she woke up with these bright eyes and gave me a smile. I tried meeping at her (you know... meep meep meep meep) and she seems to enjoy that sound and smiled, even laughed a bit. I meeped at her for quite a while until I realised the whole reason I went downstairs in the first place was to feed myself... in which I successfully did.

So quite a usual week bar a guiltily unproductive one. Worse thing is I'll probably pay for it but what goes around comes around I suppose.

Tan.N

Viva la haves and hads

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:04:56 GMT

It was like a homage to my old self last night when I visited where it all started.

I spent the daylight hours of Saturday running errands around the inner-west of Sydney. Seeing as work was called off, I did manage to pay the Speaker Hospital a visit. Greeted by a shaggy looking man, I was actually fascinated to learn about the story that truly is, "The Speaker Hospital." I was wrong to judge the concept as an overly narrow and simplistic idea of just a speaker repairman. The man said that by night, they're actually a production company that supplies shows with professional sound and not only are they big and buff to carry around amps and PA's, but they're also quite proficient at fixing speakers; a trade you end up learning seeing as you're constnatly working with speakers. He then thought it was a fairly marketable idea to be a specialist speaker repairer by day.

Another interesting thing I learnt was that he knew where the frick "Fairfield West" was. How? Back in the day he actually lived in the area and attended Westfield Sports HS. He gave me a run down of what the area looked like back in the 70's and pretty much he told me that the land behind my house used to be out and out bushland. "Me and my mates used to hunt possums there back then." Whilst I don't condone the hunting of natural Australian fauna, it was definitely an interesting thing to hear about what he did on my block of land. He also apologised everytime he had to stop the assessment of my speaker box to grab a mouthful of toast, beans and sausage - he said he doesn't believe in breakfast and so the first meal of the day is always at 1pm.

Seeing as I was in the area, I ducked down to Burwood Westfields to see what all the fuss about. Paid the Burwood OPSM a visit and was greeted by Ben and Hua.

Now the night... Jussy had a little get together down at her place in "Kentlyn". I've never acutally driven myself down to Campbelltown's way before so this was the first time, and I had to do it without a roadmap as well because my parents nicked off with the good old Gregory's. Especially lately, I feel that i've become quite a confident driver, mainly because I've stopped speeding and have a patient manner... but I was acutally terrified on the way to Campbelltown. There's definitely somehting unnerving about driving in absolute pitch black at 110km/h on a highway with only two lanes. Plus, if I miss my stop, I'll end up in Goulburn - somewhere I don't really want to be considering I'm already far far away from home heading down to woop woop. There was a point where I almost wanted to park on the side of the highway to recompose myself but I managed to get over it.

Whilst the night as Jussy's was fun as I met up with old friends, it was a sad sad reminder of how far I've come since the first time i visited Jussy's. I remember having my first post-HSC party at Jussy's - exactly a week after my final exam. It was here where I had my first drink of alcohol and it was here here I finally discovered myself properly as I was finally free from the ruling walls of high school. I felt like I got along with people really well, especially new people. It was there where I found a second wind of confidence in myself, in my ability to actually be someone who I enjoy being (my first wind being my first year playing soccer for the Westerners).

Revisiting there again two years on, I feel as if I'm some sort of tired and weary traveller. And the metaphor of a traveller is used extremely trivially for I still don't think I've actually witnessed the greater picture yet. Back then, I was so naive and I used that to my advantage cuz I felt that even for someone who is naive, I actually knew alot. But now, I don't think I've gotton any better and I should have.

I don't have that spark anymore, and I clearly don't have that intensely engaging nature anymore. The boisterous and charasmatic seems to play a more subordinate role in my life now, and I've only got my assumptions as to where I might have lost it. It was something I was most proud of and it was definitely something I used to be good at. Now considering that that part of me isn't the "specialty" anymore, what good am I now? If a cricketing batsman isn't good at batting anymore, would he still be selected in the team? The only bright side to that analogy is that he would still be selected for the team, based on reputation and past creditability. But even that has an expiry date.

Well it's easy for me to understand that these soulsearching phases do come quite periodically (periods eh...), there comes a time where you get battered so hard that it gets quite difficult to pick yourself up. I know that this phase is going to subside within the next week, it was just a scary feeling as I was sitting on the couch being the anti-social "quiet" guy, as opposed to demanding the attention and fulfilling the expectations and investments that came my way.

So here I am, being that caged bird again. It mightn't be an oppressive feeling but moreso a personality demise.

[/emorant]

Tan.N

Viva la dust storms

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 22:18:05 GMT

It was almost like Christmas morning (for those of you who did get to play along with the Christmas game). The moment I woke up this morning, I quickly ran downstairs in flighted hurry. But instead of checking out the Christmas tree and wondering if our extremely marketable consumer friendly businessman in a red suit left any presents, I opened the blinds to see if the dust storms were out to get us again. And just like any dissapointed child who didn't get all the presents he wanted, I too was dissapointed to see that the sky actually has pigments of blue. Like what the hell man? If you're gonna say there's a dust storm, at least make it a full mad gun one, rather than this pussy excuse for dust storm.

Although I will admit, the winds are actually fairly violent as I type. So violent that work has actually messaged me not to come in. I suppose there are certain benefits to working in a job wihch is actually very dependent on the weather.

So I have a whole Saturday to myself with nothing to do for the first time. There's been other times where I've taken the Saturday off from work, but those Saturdays are usually spent catching up on uni work in order to prepare myself for an impending uni exam. I was thinking of checking myself in at the "Speaker Hospital". One of my speakers have gone to shits in my guitar amp, and I was suggested to get it repaired - and no, I wasn't recommended this by an audiophile, rather, the suggestion was made by someone with alot of logic. All that time, I thought I had to fork out more money to replace the speaker and get a new speaker, but a quick google of "speaker repair" came up with a joint up in Ashfield called "The Speaker Hospital".

Yes, they've called themselves that.

Whilst you can go into the direction that, "when you walk in, there'll be nurses pushing beds around with a speaker sadly and tiresomely rested on top of it" the other thing that's hard to imagine is that there's a whole company that's based upon just speaker repairs. I'm not truly in the position to judge the shoes that a man walks in, but it seems like a very niche job to immerse yourself in. Sort of like back in the day, you had specialist VCR repairers (What's a VCR you may ask? You crazy kids with your MyPods and Ispace and Bookface...). But I digress... I should be very appreciative that such place exists so that I don't have to fork out another wad of cash for my raging audiophilic desires.

It frightens me that the semester is almost nearly over. The end of semester exams coming up at the end of this semester is going to be one of the most important exams I've ever sat. More important than that little group of pop-quizzes we did at the end of year 12 during the October period, more important than the year 9 agricultural yearly exam based upon the chicken's reproductive system (thanks Mr McCord for demonstrating how chickens lay eggs) and definitely more important than the televised IQ test where I got a score of 97. Us exhaustedly arseraped optoms have to sit a grand total of 8 exams at the end of the semester, and while it's nice to remember that some of these exams are super short (short as in five minutes short), the exam that worries the most is the prac exam, which is basically "you fail this exam, you repeat the year".

Basically in this exam, we actually play optometrist and the patient is another second year student. So we all have a go at being assessed by the examiner, and then we also have a turn at being the patient. By now, we're at a level where we should know what to do with each of the instrument, and most importantly, we're all meant to capable of working out a patient's script using that lens head with all the funky little lenses. I'm pretty sure we're tested on accuracy of the result, speed and also how we interact with the patients. Right now, I'm no where near fine tuned to do the exam, nor do I feel like I've got a stable platform to stand on to do the fine tuning. Better get the stock whip and the motivational cap on.

I'm starting to get a bit more friendly with some of my lecturers now so it makes the learning experience alot easier. The thing I didn't raelly enjoy about the first half of uni was the clear division/gap between the lecturer and their students. Even though during high school, there was a definite distinction in regards to power and authority, there was still the human side to them and we could actually get along with the teachers (well I did anyway). I'm glad that we do have the lecturers as our practical demonstrators because it makes the course feel more like a community as opposed to a society. I was talking to one of my optom lecturers/demonstrators and I heard that just recently, he went on an overseas trip just to see U2 in paris, Oasis in London and Coldplay in... The Netherlands I think? I don't know if money grows on trees out where he lives but that just sounds like a trip of a lifetime. If I found out that he went to London just to see Led Zeppelin last year, I will be a very excited little boy.

That seems about it for my musings. I'm still sitting in my bed and being that keyboard warrior I've accustomed myself into being. Better get up and start the day!

Tan.N