Sign of Doom

Yesterday I had an Economics final, I knew it was gonna be hard but thought I was at least semi-prepared, turns out I missed something. I sat down and looked around and noticed that everyone had calculators, interesting I thought, didn't know we needed a calculator but I had one in my bag so what the hell I went and got it. The thing is though if you didn't know you needed a calculator to begin with then getting one is probably not going to help you much, and that hunch turned out to be correct in my case. But at least umm I felt like I fit in with my pencils and erasers and calcualtor and ruler to draw graphs, yep I gave off a damn good performance of acting like I knew what I was doing, just turns out I had no clue so I'm pretty sure my grade for that class has gone down, I did make up answers for all the questions though so at least that'll be entertaining for the lecturer.

Please Remove the obstruction

A friend of mine lives on the 34th floor of this apartment building in Brisbane, earlier today when I was waiting to get the elevator down I could hear a ruckus occuring on a floor above, there was lots of shouting in an asian language of some description and the robot voice of the elevator saying, Please Removed Obstruction from the Door. Meanwhile I"m standing there getting pissed thinking dammit hurry up and get in so the elevator can come down to my floor! Finally it does and what was in the elevator you ask? Well it was 3 Asian people with heaps of luggage and I'm not kidding a massive box of eggrolls, like it was as big as a TV box, which I'm guessing was the obstruction in the door. Also I'm wondering where it was they were going on vacation that they felt it necessary to bring along 500 eggrolls. It was all I could do to contain myself until we got to the ground floor, it was too funny.

Also on a side note, I listened to the new Dixie Chicks album today and I have to say it's great, love the Not ready to make nice song.

The Blind Men and the Elephant

This is a great poem by John Godfrey Saxe that oddly enough I ran across in a law textbook, but it's from a fable told to him in India way back when..the moral to the story is great, and it is of course true, many wars and ignorant comments and gestures are made on assumptions of things we've never seen, a lesson to us all.

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ’tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he;
“ ‘Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

Moral:
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

Bits from everywhere

Sorry I've been absent lately but lots of school stuff to get done in the last few weeks. I got my paper back that I spent all night on and I got 26/30, which is excellent..I always do work better under pressure, although I have to say that my brain was on auto-pilot most of the time.

Also in other strange news, Dr. Heidi the Austrian PhD student who I shared a hostel with one time is supposedly gonna be my new flatmate. My landlord told me last night she was moving in and I thought, I know that crazy Austrian, and crazy she is indeed so the next weeks should be interesting, I'll of course keep you apprised of the antics of Dr. Heidi.