So it looks like I haven’t update this thing since August! I was being so committed too – writing an entry every month!
The problem now is deciding whether I should retrospectively write entries for those months, or put everything here. Actually I’ve been so busy I can barely remember what’s happened over the last few months.
Let’s see what’s I have in my calendar. August I went to a “SWIM Great Debate” with Debbie – debates are awesome I think SIMBA (Students in the IMB Association) should have one – and some other stuff. Late September mum and Jenny visited – which was nice – and some other stuff. And in October I cleaned my bedroom – which is always fun – and some other stuff happened. Actually October was my really busy month!
03/10 | Oktoberfest – Pub Crawling with Scientists
On October the 5th was SIMBA celebrated Okboberfest with a barbecue and the famous Oktoberfest pub crawl! I’ve only ever been on one pub crawl before – and that was the Oktoberfest pub crawl last year – and I don’t drink very often – and so I’m not exactly anyone’s first choice for organizing such an event. Luckily our two no-nonsense German executive members – Elaine and Joe – were there to help. My main man Thomas Whitington, the new webmaster and one of very few people I know who are tall and good at soccer (I’m only one of the two) also helped tremendously, but unfortunately the one with all the drinking experience; our president Adam; had left on a “working trip” to America for three months. Bastard. :-)
Anyhow, even without much experience, the good news is lots of people came and the night went fantastic. The German food the girls organized for the barbeque was awesome and Tom I took advice from a friendly redhead Viking called Liam and bought plenty of beers. We bought seven cartons of beer (two trolley’s full) from the First Liquor Choice superstore – which really is a superstore – it’s like being in a full size supermarket except that every isle is full of discounted booze! An experience in itself.
After the barbeque we left on our pub crawl. I was a bit worried that we’d only chosen three pubs – the R.E., the Caxton and the Brew House – instead of four, but three was plenty. Our new housemate Satomi also came along, and at the Brew House, Alby and Jon decided they were bored and asked it they were allowed to “crash”. But what made the night twice as fun (and half as stressful) for me was the fact that Debbie was with me the whole time (and the Brew House is where we met). Everything went relatively smoothly and I had designed a game called “German pub bingo” on the back of our bus passes which worked really well. Unfortunately I made it a bit hard, so no-one won until midnight, but some of the “dares” on the card were lots of fun, and lead to a lot of cross-dressing. I met some awesome people there too, including Daniel and Jacquire. Daniel got kicked out of Caxton when he was caught in the ladies toilets swapping clothes with three girls by a suspicious bouncer. :-)
Very, very fun night, but it took a lot of organizing!
03/10 | UQDance Change Over – The End of an Era
At the end October came the end of an era. It was the final lesson of UQDance for the year… which for me was the final year with me as the treasurer. Over the years I’ve poured a surprising amount of effort and heart into that club, but I’m at a time where I have to become more serious about my PhD, and there is just no way I have the energy to do it another year. We voted in a new set of people – including the legendary “Camel” (who’s real name is Chris; not that that matters) as the new president, the charismatic Andy as Secretary, the sexy dancer Khosro as treasurer and an enthusiastic Nicole as vice-president – as the new executive for 2008. The meeting went pretty well, although lots of people nominated for the different position and so it went much longer than I expected and everyone was distracted by eating pizza and voting at the same time! The one thing I regret is that I finished the AGM abruptly and forgot to thank President Ian who ran by far most of the lessons this year and did most of the hard work by lugging the equipment every week…. But luckily Nadim was there and did that for me. I hope it doesn’t sound patronising, but Ian has come a hell of a way in one year! When he started he had no dancing experience, but how he’s not only a great dancer, but he’s a great instructor and he’s have a hell of a lot of confidence. For someone like me building confidence has taken my many years, and I still have a heap to learn.
Something that I have learnt however is that helping run TWO clubs is just too much. As soon as I signed up for SIMBA in the middle of the year, I realized I had bitten off too much, and wasn’t able to help Ian as much with UQDance. Although it a bit sad to leave the UQDance executive role, I’m sure I’ll still go along to most of the events/lessons next year and it’s a relief to know that I’ve finally cut off some responsibility. Now I have to worry about the one-hundred other things I have on! Hooray!
03/10 | Phone Drama – Bad Luck comes in “Three”
It’s amazing how miserable something as small as a mobile phone can make you. Problems with my phone started a many months ago when I realized that when people sent me text message it was averaging about a day before I got the message… and the number of times this caused me to get in trouble and miss events started accumulating. At first I thought maybe it was just the reception in my room, but then I realized that it was probably my phone. I took my Nokia 6280 to three (where I bought it) and they said the problem could probably be fixed with the new version of the software, which I was sceptical about, but decided they knew better. Now you assume that would be easy to update the software driver, but they said they couldn’t do it there. My phone was just out of its one year warranty, but I luckily I bought an extended warranty for $50 so I just assumed the would talk it in and fix it for free. I was mistaken. Three told me I’d have to send the phone to Sydney, which might take weeks, and they refused to give me a replacement phone in the meantime. My other option was to visit the “Nokia Care” centre in the city, where they could fix the phone in just a coupe of days, and give a replacement phone in the meantime, so I could still make/receive calls. They estimated it would cost me $30 to update the phone, which still sounds expensive to upload a driver, but I decided it sounded like a better option. Instead they claimed I had a broken chipset and it cost me $120. I got the phone back and soon realized my phone was now worse and I couldn’t even make calls. I went back to Three, who had no idea, then back to Nokia, who said it was Three’s fault, and then back at Three I realized the problem was *probably* that they’ve installed a software version incompatible with the Three network. That cost me a whole day of making phone calls and it wasn’t until I showed the staff at three that I’d written a complaint letter that their dismissive staff decided to be helpful and offered me a replacement phone, and a charger (which didn’t work – so that was another trip back), while I mailed my Nokia to Sydney. In Sydney it took them about a month before they sent my phone back, but I was finally happy that they’d identified a battery problem and, although they didn’t do the safe thing and replace the phone, they gave me a new battery. Only probably was they have obviously broken the cable on phone and so I can’t connect it to my computer to upload my calendar and contact numbers. So basically I’ve spent most of this year with a poor phone, missing calendar events and text message, and including the cost of parking in the city (which is $10 or more just for half-an-hour) I’ve probably spent almost $200 on this stupid phone that is now more broken then when the problems began. And the real irony is I spent $50 on an extended warranty to protect against this sort of thing. From here I’m not really sure what to do. I was hoping that writing complaint letters and making this rant might make me less angry, but in reality it makes it worse, and realistically I’m not going to see my money again. Three blames my problem on Nokia, and Nokia blames my problems on three, and I’m fed up with driving between the two stores.
It’s difficult to admit this, but the sensible option is probably cut my losses and just buys a new phone. I’ve just bought a new computer recently (my old one was over three years old and looking a bit unhealthy), and that was NOT cheap, so the prospect of spending yet more money is difficult, but I feel it might be my only option left. For anyone out there thinking of signing up with three: be warned that as soon as they have you on a contract their customer service disappears.
03/10 | Trip to America
But enough of that nastiness. I’m going to America soon! Hooray! I leave on the 23rd of November, and I have so much to do before then I’m about to be worked off my arse. I’m going to boulder for one week too work with a guy called David Mastronade and incorporate some of my ideas into a program called IMOD which is used by lots of people in my research field, so that’s going to be a great experience. Then I’m flying across to Washington DC for a gigantic week-long conference. I’m sure it will be a great experience, but unfortunately I’ll only have a couple of days during the trip to explore – the rest of the time I’ll spend working.
And on that note I might have to leave. My new computer came with Vista installed, but somehow I managed get a virus almost immediately after connecting to the web! Probably serves me right for not installed anti-virus protection before testing my internet connection. Vista takes a lot of getting use to. Like most people my immediate reaction was: “this is just a show-pony piece of crap”, but hey; I remember people saying the same about XP when it came out, so I’ve decided to force myself to use it for a few weeks and see if I start adapting. Most new computers come with Vista, so I may as well get use to it now. *sigh*
Anyhow, I’m about to reformat both my new and old machine. Hope everyone is well, and the next entry you’ll see might detail my exploits in America. I’ve always wanted to see America – see what all the fuss is about – so hopefully my experiences will be positive. :-)
