Disorderly Accounts of Uni Life

Lachlan M. Harris. BSc.

2011-03-21T19:24:00.003+08:00

My blog does not represent the views of Murdoch or any of its affiliates. All posts are NOT to be taken seriously and are written only for entertainment purposes.

Lachlan is no longer posting in this blog, please subscribe to "Road to Awesomenessness" (Please note there are intentionally TWO "ness" suffixes, why? Because three is ridiculous.) to read about full time work, living in state with no friends or family, more stalkees and more unusable advice.

It turns out, only the valedictorian and the person receiving the honourary doctorate get speeches. Sigh, but, I don't really want to waste a good speech, so I'll post it here.

Distinguished guests, parents, friends, undistinguished guests, Perth convention centre staff, ninja's who have managed to sneak in and the ladies and gentlemen of the class of 2011. People have never asked me for advice, but if they did, 'wear pants' would be it. The benefits of wearing pants have had substantial scientific proof in terms of retaining warmth, keeping off sun and hiding the fact that you're going commando. The rest of the advice I'm about to give is based purely on personal experience, the experience of people I know and pure conjecture.

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE YOUR SEXUAL APPEAL. A non-safe search on the part of your body you find least attractive will reassure yourself that someone not only finds you attractive, but would love to spend their Saturday night looking at pictures of you, then crying in shame.

NEVER BE ASHAMED OF PICTURES. Too many times I've seen people shy away from a camera, looking back you will not remember if you were there, and more ashamedly, those others that took photos will never remember you were there, eventually, you will be forgotten.

NO MATTER HOW MUCH A PERSON ANNOYS YOU END ON GOOD TERMS. You will not want to find out that someone who had so much more potential than you passed away, and the last thing you said to them was a lame "Mac vs PC" debate. In the end, nobody wins. As long as you don't get them into the whole "Mac vs PC vs Linux" debate, people are generally okay.

IF YOU ARE GOING TO GET GIVEN ATTENTION, MILK IT. If that means coming of a bit of a douche. Forget it, you will regret wasting your only opportunity fist bump the chancellor for the rest of your life.

YOUTH IS WASTED ON THE YOUNG. No matter what you do you will miss it, if you can occasionally muster up the courage to do something stupid with a bit of vitality, people will forget you are so old and envy you for appearing to still have energy. You are never too old for this shit. However,

ACT MATURE, PEOPLE MIGHT BELIEVE YOU. If you can occasionally muster up the courage to act confidentially, talk with a voice of experience and wisdom, people will forget you are so young, and envy the knowledge you have obtained and that the you will continue to excel far past them.

IF YOUR ORGANISING AN EVENT, WHICH INVOLVES CO-ORDINATING A LOT OF PEOPLE, SOMETHING WILL GO WRONG. You can only hope that it will result in an a man with a Bond villain accent saying "You're not on my list" And a graduate receiving honours and completing masterclass getting three separate applause's. Although she deserve it, master class is completing pretty much an entire degree in a year.

DO ONE THING EACH DAY WHICH SCARES YOUR FAMILY. They are full of good advice, a listening ear and a pillar of strength, but are jealous that they wouldn't dance across the stage to receive their degrees, so discourage will you doing so.

SHOW OFF YOUR TESTICLES.

Many females I've met, I openly state that they have bigger "balls" than me. They have the courage to put up with, and pull through so much more than I have had too, that I must admit in terms of a pride of lions, they are the ones with the mane and 50 lays a day. You might think that when things become every day for you, that they are easier, that doesn't mean they are no less impressive. Occasionally use this a motivator. "I've moved across the other side of the country to no friends or family, the other side of the world would be a cakewalk." I guess some people want to appear humble, but if you know you can one up everybody in room by saying you started a foundation for terminally ill children, women suffering breast cancer, and a support line for people with depression, after not completing high school. You're allowed to silence a room every few months and allow people to take a long, hard look At their contributions to society.

DRINK STRAIGHT FROM THE CARTON. It's unhygienic but saves on washing up.

While we're on cheap tips while living alone, FABRIC DEODORISER SHOULD ONLY BE USED AS A DESPERATE ALTERNATIVE TO WASHING CLOTHES. You have to be willing to smell like lavender, and it doesn't make ironing your clothes any easier, in fact, most deodorisers are flammable.

STOP USING LADY SCENTED BODY WASHES AND SWITCH TO OLD SPICE. Although it will not increase your chances for a partner, in will make you stop smelling like Lynx. And that's fan-freaking-tastic.

DO NOT TRY TO ESCAPE FLOODING IN BRISBANE BY TAKING A HOLIDAY TO JAPAN. What can I say, mother nature is a bitch.

"Everyboooo-dies freeeeeee"

BE NICE TO MACHINES. It won't be long till they take over and all those times you said "F*****g slow computer!" will be remembered. And we are going out of our way to make electronics water proof, dust proof and shock proof, how will we kill them now?!

LEARN HOW TO BE A GOOD PASSENGER. You may not always be the one driving, tolerate others, you may know how to indicate, but few of you know how to ride a train, you do NOT just fill the entry exit space, that's being a DOUCHE. Spread to the isle, I should not miss a freakin train cause you don't know this. And on the same note, if someone is trying to get off, MOVE. You are not the only one on the train.

KEEP PEOPLE ON THEIR TOES. When trying they'll become intimidated and they will become your bitch.

KEEP ON GOOD TERMS WITH YOUR FAMILY when things get bad they'll listen.

KEEP ON GOOD TERMS WITH YOUR CLOSEST FRIENDS when things get bad they'll listen and give advice that doesn't make you feel too bad.

Maybe you'll get married, maybe you won't.
Maybe you'll have kids, maybe you won't.
Maybe you'll be found dead in your home at 35 getting eaten by your cats.

DON'T CONGRATULATE YOURSELF TOO MUCH, OR BERATE YOURSELF TOO MUCH EITHER. There's always someone you're better than, but constantly push yourself to make sure of that. There's always someone who will be better than you regardless of how much you put in. Use this person as an inspiration, to push yourself to your absolute limits.

BE WILLING TO ADMIT THERE ARE GAPS IN YOUR KNOWLEDGE. EXCEPT IF YOU ARE IN A JOB INTERVIEW. In which case you know a way to solve the Israel/Palestine crisis, a way to slow down the world population and found a way not to get toast crumbs in the butter container.

Remember that WORRYING IS USELESS. Worrying is about as effective as completing your process map by working on a blog post.

BRUSH YOUR TEETH. Toothpaste contains sodium fluoride, which a few people are convinced is going to kill them. These people are not aware that nearly everything can kill them, the simple act of taking a step inside into a world of viruses and pollen is actually good for you, or at least, your future generations who build up immunities if you have the courage.

And finally success is really what you make of it. For me, the definition of success is doing something you love and doing someone who loves you. If you can get paid for the prior, you should feel like that's purely a bonus, and probably even over paid. If you're getting paid for the second, well, I'd consider a career change. That movie where the girl falls for the escort, yeah, that's just silly.

But trust me with the pants.

Disorderly Accounts of Alumni Life

2010-12-22T12:11:00.009+08:00

My blog does not represent the views of Murdoch or any of its affiliates. All posts are NOT to be taken seriously and are written only for entertainment purposes.

WARNING. THIS IS LONG. TOO LONG. I have worked on and off this post for four weeks, as a result, it's reached critical maths. As a BIG favour, I ask you to time the time it takes you to read this post and put it in the comments section, post it on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or tattoo it on the lower half of your body. You are able to post anonymously so you have NO excuse.

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"Not every end is the goal. The end of a melody is not the goal, and yet, if it has not reached it's end, it has achieved it's goal." - Nietzsche

"We have a staff member leaving us today."

The principal of the department is taking the attention of everyone away from the reasonless free cake provided in the staff room by giving it a reason to be there. Which of course makes the cake actually lose its value. Seriously, no such thing as a free lunch anymore. And yes, this cake is my lunch, and it is delicious. I do sit up a bit at the sound of these words. I mean, could he mean me? Possibly, but lets not get our hopes up subconscious, I mean, you've dealt with the principle twice. Once, one my first day, and a second time setting up a dual monitor. Which he left the room for, and didn't come back when you'd finished. And still wasn't back 10 minutes after you'd been spinning around in his chair. I've shared less than 10 words with him, most of which were "Hello" and my name. So lets stop eating, show some respect for the other person who happens to be leaving today and pretend I remember their name and if I've done anything for them.

"From what I hear, they are moving to Brisbane..."

Lots of people move to Brisbane, before finding out that Dreamworld is over rated, Movie World is always being renovated and the beach is always closed due to sharks. And it's raining at the moment. A lot. And I'm not definitely moving to Brisbane there's still a very not nice place at the back of my mind, playing out a still highly possible reality that me learning BGP at the last minute wasn't enough to save me from a possible year of awkwardness of having to give up the recently graduate position and having to re-apply next year.

"To work for the ATO."

I like attention, and I was rejected on my first day when my boss had to call staff attention towards me, as opposed to the principle, who, in the course of two hours, had forgotten out 6 word conversation. But this is odd, I feel kinda embarrassed handling this, there are many faculty who have been here longer than I've been alive, and I'm getting attention after being here for nine months.

"Would Lachlan Harris please come up here."

Just shake his hand, say thank you, mouth a bunch of other random words, smile nod your head, then sit down. Fake a smile so you don't have to admit that there is a possibility that I'll be back next year to stuff up more.

"Thank you Lachlan, it's been a pleasure having you and we wish you all the best for your future."

I like that though, he's not just saying good luck for Brisbane, as much as I love Australia, I want to work all over the world, I mean, it's not just Australia which has the Internet. I know that to get the Internet speed I'd really like I have to work in South Korea... Hmm.. Yep, worth it. They only filter and censor the news. Filtering the news isn't denying the right to information, it's just plain old journalism - Right now they are people who are getting paid to make other people believe that optic fibre is the most terrible form of transmission cable available. And that's terrible. All that proves is people are manipulative and people are willing to be manipulated. Seriously, how the hell do people get degrees in journalism and statistics?

There's also San Jose. Awww to work for Layer3 on the actual real backbone of the entire Internet. I don't really know anything about San Jose but that there's a serious backbone there, but that's all I need to hear. And there's Internet on the space station, sure it's dial up speeds, but that would be a network to play on.

"I'd like to give you this."

It's a glass containing a pen and a badge, all containing The Departments logo and contact details. I don't care that I know there's thousands of them, and that he just piked them of a stack from his office. I've REALLY loved working here and I think the best way to remember it is with paraphernalia.

Then my boss speaks up. Says a few kind words that I've done a great job and this is me leaving rather than being let go. Gives me a pair of sensible socks to replace my loud yellows ones, and a Brisbane Lions cap just to blend in within Brisbane. Of course, I'm not a fan of any type of sport which origins were much more manly than the way the game is played today, but I didn't care, again it was about the thought of being thought about. Personally I would have liked a Brisbane Bears cap, just to be ironic.

Okay, so there is seven unfinished jobs that I know my boss has no time for, and really aren't that interesting, and I should have planned better so I could have completed them. But I feel like I really have earned my wage here.

---------------------------------------------------

Oh God, I should have eaten before coming here. Damn, I don't even feel like playing TeeWorlds, lets just queue up some more downloads and watch Spadge play Battlefield or Minecraft, talk about nothing. Damn, I wish I could be as calm as the rest of these people. For the 8th time that hour I hit refresh. The page reloads, still showing "There are no results available at this time. B.S. My results have been set for a week now, they're being loaded into the database some time as we speak, but I know the system releases chunks of results to the website at a time. You know, for completed a degree in networking, I didn't learn a lot about server side processing. Okay, I could have done some more units about website construction and coding in PHP but I had a full three years with just my core. Maybe it's something to think about though. If I've failed any units, they don't run again till semester two 2011, so I'd want to fill up S1 with something. Probably IP Telephony, Damn, wish I could do that unit. Wait, no I don't, if I can do that unit that means I've failed something, I've lost my Brisbane job and I have to find some other work.

I nervously explain to Spadge about the call I got. I shouldn't be superstitious, but, this was DAMN FREAKY. I mean, day my results come out. I've thought about it, and I think I'd be too embarrassed to apply for The Department again. So I get this call earlier that day from THE AUSTRALIAN COMPUTER DOCTORS (Maybe it's just me, but that kinda business name sounds like it can only be said in all caps.) saying they've been trolling a network, found me on a website I put myself on early 2009 when I had no job. I've never got any response to it. It just said I'm a geek and will gladly help out with doing tech stuff.

So THE AUSTRALIAN COMPUTER DOCTORS call me, saying hey what experience do you have. And I'm like "Have no girlfriend, so very little" and they're like "o.O ...Well actually, were talking computer experience, let's just a say a computer won't boot, it just beeps a few times." My heads like, sinch, had one of these a few weeks ago. "Ah let me see, well, after checking all the connections to the monitor to make sure there's no output, open it out, beeping motherboard normally means it's complaining about being too hot, or the RAM not being in properly, if the fan is working, and the RAM is in, look up the motherboard manufacturer, a service manual should have the beep codes." He thanks me for the walk through and detail and then asks "What about viruses?" I say "Yes" hesitantly. He picks up the hostility in my voice and explain that it's a time consuming process doing a backup and wiping a system. And he's like, actually there's this really neat tool which just cancels running processes that it doesn't like. (I have since downloaded a copy and yes, it's good, it even comes in a screen saver container, as a lot of viruses and spyware like disabling exe's. This would have been good a couple of weeks ago for a friend but I sorted his out by just finding where the process was executing from, moving the executable so the boot up registry command didn't work, then deleted the file. And that was it, nice and simple. He then asks "Have you replaced the LCD in a laptop." I think for a few seconds and say "Yes." Confidently. Okay, so I only did that thing a few weeks ago where I opened up the laptop and played with the connector, but I could have just swapped it out.

He's like "Okay Lachlan, would you like a job?" I thought about it, declined stating that I had a job lined up for next year, politely thanked him for a 15 minute conversation which got him a person he liked and wasn't interested. He could swear at me after he hung up. Instead he said the phrase that I had been over analysing later that night.

"Look, if circumstances change in the next few days, give us a call."

I know, it was purely coincidental, but seriously, wrong choice of words.

I was now so nervous that I was downloading everything. A huge collection of kids films and TV shows, anything. My stomach growled again, I'll wait. I want my results the second I can get them. I started watching a movie. Only to find every fifteen minutes I would pause it and check again... Nothing. By now, it was after 9 I decided to give them some time. I closed the page. And just chilled. If you have ever been anxious, you'll know that feeling when it sort of drains away, your left exhausted but content. In a purgatorial bliss as you ignore everything. Let's just check my email, scroll through Facebook, check the latest of the comics I follow, just do anything to take my mind off the possible future, now becoming louder in my mind. Suddenly, 30 minutes had passed. I decided, if they're not up now, I'll go and eat.

They were.

The page loaded quickly and I noticed that the the line about results not being avalible at this time had been replaced with a table, my eyes looked down the grades column, confirming each result with my brain. It must of only been 3 seconds, but it felt like 10 minutes. Comparing the three results. Looking at the grades. My fate had been sealed.

I like attention. I know what I screamed had no real bearing on anybody in the room. Making an exclamation to tell everybody the news I knew that only some of them cared about, but it was something I wanted to do when this moment had arrived, regardless of the outcome.

I then checked my course progress page, it had updated instantaneously and it was interesting to see the new results.

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"I know it says 'Course requirements incomplete,' don't believe it, look, I have this second printout from the Murdoch website. There just hasn't been the official meeting yet."

"Meeting?"

"Well, I'm not sure if it's a meeting, but there's a group of people at Murdoch who don't realise that they have been made redundant by a bunch of IF statements on a website that manually check each graduate to make sure they can graduate and have fulfilled their requirements. But like I said, this print out from the Murdoch website, says i have completed all my requirements."

"I'm sorry there's nothing we can do. If your academic transcript says you haven't fulfilled the course requirements - You need to send your complete academic transcript onto your representative in Murdoch."

Seriously, she's going to trust a person manually checking, more than an IF statement. That group has to check thousands, they'd get bored make mistakes. An IF statement never fails UNLESS it's poorly coded. Wow, again, that joke just wrote itself. Perl is awesome.

"But, I'm not sure how long that will take."

"Again, I'm sorry, unless we get your completed transcript by the 31st of January you can't start the graduate program."

Ah crap, foiled by Murdoch. I know there's circumstances where the IF statement done by the website does not match the actual requirements of a student. Degree's change, and I'm sure that blanket updates of requirements happen on the website, rather than the course requirements being set per student. I mean, in a database that would be a MESS. Like the course requirement database already is, but worse.

So that's it. A series of COMPLETED's on MyInfo says I can leave but a single word says I cannot. Ah well, bureaucracy is bureaucracy.

"So can I get my security pass photo taken now."

"Hmmm, you're relocating I'll just check."

"No, sorry, you cannot. We can only issue passes for the Perth office."

Keep it together Lachlan. Although you can't do any of the things you came here today, you at least met one person going into IT in Brisbane, that's something, isn't it? You might have to work with him in the future, so, you know. Keep it together in front of him.

So that means this nation wide government department can't even centralise it's security system.

"So, when I get to Brisbane, how long will it take to get my pass."

"Oh, you'll get your photo done on the first day, should be on your third or fourth day."

And said department can't even get systems which make passes instantaneously, I hope they realise Fremantle Hospital just one up'd them.

Keep it together Lachlan. Remember why you are here. You are here because all over the world, systems like this currently suck. There's lots of red tape and people don't like change. You are here because you know how to get stuff done and cut red tape by making red tape redundant. You are here because people enter spaces in between credit card numbers when they enter them into website. You know that you either make a form with 4 boxes, or strip the surplus input when it goes to the database. You know that people use back button when making purchases online, then complain that there's two transactions on their card. You know you make a form open in a new window that does not have controls, you disable right click, add your own "BACK" button, put in large print DO NOT CLOSE OR CLICK BACK and add a clause to your website saying "If are having trouble, get your [grand]son/[grand]daughter to help you."

You, Lachlan, are here, because you can fix things. You can make a batch script that rolled out a virtual machine, adjusted share permissions and generally fixed a machine to work on a network when it first boots up. You sir, are needed here. If my insider is indeed correct and they are not rolling out SharePoint 2010 till 2012, you know that the servers will need to be upgraded to server 2008 and you know the troubles involved with making such a move. You know that they could, in the mean time, deploy Shared View (Although it does require and Internet connection and a Live ID, I'm sure it can be intergrated into an exchange server instead.) for collaboration in the short term as it would cause no conflicts to any systems currently in place. You know that their communicator server will need to be upgraded to Lync.

As long as Saint Isadore is smiling upon me, and I'm put where I need to be, I can fix this.

More importantly, I want to fix this.

Does this make a control freak? Most likely. but if it makes things better, is that really an issue?

Ah carp, you do need a Live ID to use shared view. But it's already allowed through firewalls by using HTTPS.

Ah carp I'm holding up the graduate line. Let's get out here get a milkshake. The Murdoch website does say "A couple of weeks" for graduate processing, if it's not done by this time January I'll freak out a little. Otherwise, let's get out of here.

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So I believe this is just about it for this blog. A HUGE thank you, just for reading it. I don't care if you think I'm weird, funny whatever. I just cared that you thought my opinion would help you decide about Murdoch Uni, or how to get through uni. Ultimately, it's up to you to decide, but I think I've been a pretty good endorsement, overall. So I would like you to give a big hand to Jo Hawkins again for commissioning this blog and for listening to me. And also, when the randoms at the Internet cafe have stopped staring at you for randomly applauding. It's been a good trip, and as I look at the three parking permits still adhered to my widscreen, I think about the fact that they are probably enough of a driving distraction to get a yellow sticker from the department of licencing, I also think about the work that I put it earning them and the work that I achieved abusing them by being able to arive 3 minutes before a lecture starts and managing to make the lecture on time. Well, at least some lecture on time after I realise that I've arrived at the wrong lecture theatre. Let's put this distraction of mine into some sort of perspective, not including this post, this blog has racked up:

61 Posts (6 Unpublished, because they went nowhere.)
72,841 Words
Approximately 85 hours, by my estimate.

WAIT, WHAT.

176 pages. (Including images. And the weird way my fonts likes to change randomly, blame the old blogger WYSIWYG editor.)

That's... Longer than a dissertation. 242 pages of raw XML. What started as stupid incoherent scratchings and turned into long incoherent rants is really grown up now. of course the bulk being my longer stuff this year, I can't believe what I used to click "Publish" and believe was "Acceptable length." Ah a pressing 349 assignment and the forced watching of a kids movie changed all that, aye, this final year has been the most interesting, IMHO, two events of handing in a major assignment with 3 minutes before it was due, causing a desperate run between the library at the IT office. And it hasn't just been big for me - Murdoch have released a full retrospect of their year and boy is it insane.

WAIT.

What's this? In December. No... No.. FIRST THE TWEET AND NOW THIS. Not just showing off the very helpful blog of Jess Eaton, who has done massive a work on educating good uni practices, who also hits twitter very hard. Johnathan's extremely helpful and humourous blog focused on aiding International students. I would like to put my condolences here for the recent passing of his father, and do hope that after a period of mourning he is ready to face the new year of challenges ahead of him. The recently lifeless, but very real and thoughtful blog of Tara. The very mature perspective of Rob, whose been in enough places to know what he's talking about and offers very stimulating conversation about aspects of uni that us common students don't consider as much as we should. Jim Caro, who I congratulate for completing the mammoth undertaking of a Ph'd, his posts are the best signs that I'm going to not think about such things until I'm mature. And finally, the vastly underrated posts of Ashley Joseph.

Lachlan, you can't say underrated, he has more followers, more comments and more regular readers than you do.

What I mean is, it's not enough, it's like this blog, but if I was actually funny to more people than just the writer

Oh you don't try that self deprecating BS to get sympathy, it won't work the sixth time...

Sorry, I mean, it's just hard when you have a certain idea of what you believe is funny, and it's shared with vary few other people, it's difficult to feel appreciated for the hours of work I put in.

I know, but one day, you will find your audience, the words will flow more naturally and you'll be better. I promise. And when your posts are getting comments of people enjoying them all over the world you know I'll be right here saying I told you so and WAIT A MINUTE. YOU BASTARD. God I hate being a voice in your head, it really drives me insane. Seriously first schizophrenic ever who makes his voices leave in annoyance.

Ahem. And then there's this bullocks. I don't know, whether I'm still read by the communications team, whether I still get the occasional new read who is coming to Murdoch and looking for some reality to scare him/her out of it. All I know is, I put this crap here, and like looking your name up in a phone book, it just makes me feel good that it's still on Murdoch pages for a short while. It was there throughout this degree. A pixelated photo of a blurry smile, from a guy who didn't want to be anywhere else. I know it was probably put on there cause this image was actually posted very early in Dec and they didn't have anything to show for it. But the fact is, that Lachlan is me. I made it on there. The four people who got honourary degrees are only a number. The thousands of people with parking permits and nowhere to park are mentioned. The thousands of enrollments are mentioned (Notice how it's not a number of accepted, just a number enrolled. I see what you did there, Murdoch.) I'm a name. I'm next to some much better names, but I'm there. I was part of Murdoch in 2010. It wouldn't have been the same without me. No seriously, cause if there were only four names it would have been arranged differently and I couldn't do this.

Please don't tell me I was the first one to see it... Well, okay this blog has hit a WWII reference, that sadly means it has to come to an end. It's just the rules.

So, we've come to the thank you's now.

Blogs like this don't just magically appear there's lots of behind the scenes stuff that goes on, went on to bring this post to you and although I can't mention all the names here, these people are some of the most important people of my experience at uni and have influenced this blog in all sorts of ways, I thank them from the ventricles of my heart.

Sister #1

Sister #2

Mum & Dad

Other Family, astd.

Spadge

All commentors, including those couple of guys who insulted me one of which who taught he was a better blogger and then didn't start a blog. I'm sure you are a better blogger, I just wish you'd show it. And that spammer who thought I wanted to kill my mold spores.

Housemate #1

Housemate #2

Bet he doesn't mention me, the tosser.

Jo Hawkins

Other staff working in Murdoch publicity department who kept my URL there

The other staff who actually read this blog
Jonathan Gurney
Kacy
Jess Easton
Tara
Jim Caro
Ashley Joseph
Rob
All other students bloggers who aren't mentioned

MrDr. Christian Payne

Danny Toohey

Mike Dixon

Peter Cole

Sue Urbaniak

Person/s represented by bold/italic/bold-italic/underlined type faces

Awww... That was nice of him, maybe he isn't such a tosser

Designers behind InPrivate/Incognito/GhostZilla browsing modes

...

The Staff, Students and Other Faculty of Murdoch School of IT

The member(s) of MITS

The overworked Murdoch IT Service Desk

The Staff, Students and Other Faculty of the rest of Murdoch University

The entire population of Quendas at Murdoch University

The Murdoch Animal Ethics Commitee

The Staff, Students and Other Faculty members of The Department

Staff Members of ITTS Fremantle Hospital

The rest of the staff of Fremantle Hospital

The selection panel of the Australian Bureau of Statistics Graduate Program

My Pancreas

The girl I was stalking doing accounting

Stalkee #1

Stalkee #2

Stalkee #3 - #n
YOU

Right. Any questions? (As I was never asked any questions, I thought of some questions that I'd like to answer.):

What was this blogs purpose?
I really have kept posting because there's lots I like to vent. Normally with uni advertising you get the two extremes, advice for people who do really good, and advice for people who do really bad. There wasn't any middle ground.

So, this was really a blog for things you'd like to tell yourself to try and explain the uni experience?
I think you can really only write good advice to yourself. 20/20 Hindsight type thing. I try to keep my comments and ramblings a bit generic so that any people can relate to them, but it is difficult. If I'd helped anyone go to uni who was thinking against it, I think I would be most happy. If that person is doing absolutely terrible right now, I'm sorry I did that to you. I hope you realise you can't sue me, all these posts have been guarded by the "Your experience may differ, results are not typical" clause that normally applies to weight loss products.

So what's your current position?
I'm sitting down.

How is moving to Brisbane looking?
Scary as fuck. Which is the worst statement ever, the word "fuck" is never scary. In fact, I think it's probably the least scary of all the profanities. But seriously, This is the second time in my life moving, and it's moving to a state in which I have no family and very few friends... Sure in my life I had hoped that I'd get to move all over the world. The concept of being a "Digital Nomad" interests me. Moving from city to city slowly changing the world.

You're a big believe in bs like "purpose" "true love" and "ninja's" why?
I can perfectly understand how people can't believe in things like these, it's all perspective, but I look at how my life has rolled and it's hard for me not to. I have nearly always been in the place where I need to be. And I have some big ideas about developments that I think no one has thought of yet, stupid little things, but ideas I believe will enhance various parts of the industry like my hierarchical DHCP system. I just think it's something that needs to happen. As well as my Selective Host Interface Protocol, I mean, at the uni last week, trying to dispense an Internet down a switch, trying to use a Linux box as a router didn't work so well, but with my ideas on how to give an interface a "Purpose" (Yes, I know, but in my current scribbled notes I've called the designated use of a port a "Purpose" with several defined "Purpose" profiles, as well as application based "Purposes"

In terms of love, being in a state where I haven't been in a relationship makes the mind do funny things to try and make up for it. The vague hope that I keep getting "almost" into relationships, can only make me think there's one I'm suppose to be in. j But I mean, that's the other thing, I thought I'd need a girl to get through uni, I didn't. I did just fine, in fact, it might of ended up worse if I had yet another distraction.

I guess the benefit of being in another City means there's a higher possibility of a chase scene where she chases me through the Brisbane airport to stop me getting on a plane back to Perth. However a pre warning about doing this, Stalkee, I am going back to Perth for my birthday, and I wanna attend my graduation. So try a little bit later in the year.

And Ninja's? Well, Ninja's are a lot like Father Christmas the second you stop believing, you don't get any more presents, but in this case, the second you stop believing is the second you get the crap beaten out of you by someone you can't see.

So what's actually happened about Brisbane?
I was there and I submitted a rental application that will be used to apply for two properties. As of the 19th, I haven't heard back.

So how is the department coping without you?
Not sure. Hope it's doing okay.

Where do you see yourself in five years?
Watching TV.

After living with Housemate #1 for so long, do you still talk to him?
Yes, I saw Tron Legacy with him, which is pretty much as close as two males can get before people start thinking things

Is the 'Stalkee' thing just a cover for being homosexual, and your body is actually being repulsive as a natural defense at the possibility of being forced into a relatioonship that it does not want to be in?
No, at least, for now. And plus, I spent $520 to try and get with Stalkee #1, I think that counts for something

Wait, "Stalkee #n"?
I don't know how many people I will go after, all I know is it will be a finite amoun t, and hopefully Stalkee n was just chilling in Brisbane all this time

Oh God, please do not just hit on every girl at the Mana Bar
With Ryu at the door? Hell no.

What colour underwear are you wearing right now?
none (wink) actually, it's because I'm currently blogging naked, as I often do, hence, I should never get into a job where I can work at home.

What colour crayon would you be?
White, you'd be like fuck yeah crayons and then be all like, wait... This is stupid... Why is there a white crayon?

Will you stop stealing questions from Ashleigh's blog?
No

Have you ever done anything stupid directly to your body not on purpose?
I cut open my right index finger with a pair of scissors leaving my laptop unable to recognise my finger print, burned the top part of that finger off with a steam burn, cut my left index finger open with a cardboard box, and cut the inside of my mouth twice.

Wow, that some life you had there?
What are you talking about, that was in the last two weeks. I'm not joking. I've hurt myself more in the last two weeks than in the rest of the year.

Did you ever have a best friend of the opposite sex?
Despite what you may think, I end up in the friend zone more often than you may think, in fact, I didn't really have a male friend until year 4. And after making aware of my feelings, typical stalkee behaviour is "Awwww... That's so sweet, but no. Let's hang out sometime though!" Every. Flucking. Time. And we're talking about 7 or 8 times now..

Left handed or right handed?
When I was young I was ambidextrous, in terms of writing, equally poor quality with both my left and right hand. I chose left, but the majority of other things I do in the right handed way.

You gonna drive to Brisbane?
Although my first few trip will definitely be by magnificent flying machines, it sounds and awesome change to listen to my music collection from beginning to end. Yeah that's right, I only have about 50 hours.

What's in your fridge right now?
20 Litres of juice, 12 litres of cider, 4 cans of sunkist and a packet of licorice bullets.

Party Hard.
You know I will

What's it actually like during a lecture?
Loop this vid for three hours

Exciting stuff.

Preferred communication method?
IM, but not Facebook IM. Instant Messaging is archived, you can search it. You can edit what you say before you say it. And you can ignore people. Brilliant.

Favorite unit?
I shouldn't say, lecturer's may read this...

Come on, you'll never see them again...
I might, and they might provide me valuable opportunities in the future

Could you really see Christian giving you a reference?

No, but Danny did..

Only because it made you move to the other side of Australia

I hate you.

If you could date anyone on Blogger, who would you go with?
Possibly Saskia. Or Ashleigh, or Diea, or Lia. Or maybe Kacy.

Wait, that's just all the females following your blog....

Notice how there are 6 people following my blog and five are female? Friend zone.

And Ashleigh has a boyfriend, regardless of whether you'd get along. She solved her text size problem on her own. She doesn't need you. Forget about it you sick twisted strange little man.

I MADE YOU AND I CAN END YOU. But lets finish this post first, I mean, after all we've been through together...

Why did this blog post take so long to be put up?
Okay, well, mainly cause I kept adding to it, it begun with just me talking about results, then I actually got my results, so I added that, then the thing with Meet and Greet Happened, then I went to Brisbane to find a place, it's all been a bit of a mess, hence this post hasn't turned out as cool as I wanted it to be.

You promised us a live post, what happened?
I realised I'm very poor at actually talking, mainly cause I can't go back and correct things later on, so I tried a couple of times, and it turned out a mess.

Project Hindenburg? Why name it that?
Project Hindenburg was suppose to be a series of blogs atalking about different facilities on the Murdoch campus. It didn't really happen that well

Your blog titles are always slightly odd, why?
Usually, they make a very obscure reference to a game or viral video, sometimes just a poor pun, other times just how I'm feeling and what I believe the main points of that post are about. Last post for example was a reference to a book which was written in 1995 about the future of computing. Which said the Internet was currently stupid and totally wasting it's potential, so should be ignored. Before you laugh, he was right. He then started talking about the potential of writing an application that could run on the internet that anybody could use anywhere. Computer networks talking to each other across the world. If you've ever used blogger, Google Spreadsheet or Docs, Office Workspace, or web apps or used a VPN (No, not the Wireless Internet VPN, that ain't what it's made for.). You know he was right. No one really wants to know what you had for breakfast so why is that what we are filling the Internet with?! Although he didn't count on online transcations becoming possible and things like Amazon and eBay, so he re wrote the book a couple of years later which was more on the future of the internet.

What did you have for breakfast?
Cheese and Bacon English Muffin, glass of apple and blackcurrant juice, a V, a multivitamin and the blood of my enemies.

So who am I?
Erm. A number of people, sometimes the Italics actually represented someone, other times, it was the part of the my brain which acts as my straight man

This blog is finishing now... Where does that leave us?
Well, it's not quite over, I'll still do my review of graduation night on here, what I did on stage, what I actually end up yelling to the crowd, the names of the nice security guards who don't handle me too roughly when they throw me out of the convention center. Pissed that I used up that congraduations pun on my sister, still haven't thought of a better one. But other wise, this blog will sit here. Gathering dust. Holding fragments of three years well spent avoiding responsibilities.

While my life changes again... This time, it's REALLY serious. This time, I'm embarking on a journey that I hope leads me to a path, which in turns leads me to a lane-way which eventually to a road to my destiny of "Being full of potential, but never using it." THIS story will be immortalised.. HERE.

This is the story. Behind The Story. Behind the man. After the student life. In a little fable entitled:

You're making a big assumption, thinking you're going to be big...

Well, I have to be now, I paid for the font, logo and new URL - If I don't get hits of the coolness of using "Old English Text MD" and the watercolour brush in paint, then I don't know what will. It'll have the trip to Brisbane, snapshots of my jobs, getting drunk at the Mana Bar, Stalkee #3, getting drunk at the Mana Bar, the weird weather and getting my copy of Thief 2 signed by Yahtzee at the Mana Bar. I've heard there's other good things in Queensland, but seriously... Mana bar. First post will be up very shortly, with stuff about the actually place I end up moving into - That's all up in the air at the moment. I know I always say "Very shortly" but when there's something good to write about, I'll start writing about that.

Graffiti of the end:

"The Nazi girl screms 'violence violence'" "She Gets Hysterical?" "I always thought thought a Nazi would speak German..."

Okay, not typically graffiti, but WTF

"But I never learnt to drive stick!" "So this mess was you!" Fact: Firemen require a spotter when operating a fire hose, that is, a person standing behind them to absorb the force giving by the water pressure. Guys in toilets don't get that luxury.

"RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE...."

"or, format and reinstall"

Whoops.

"Piss in the fucking urinal... Or at least lift the seat"

"Ah my last crap in a Murdoch toilet. It's sad to leave, but I'm so looking forward to the future, and all the future toilet visits that presents..."

Oh and would you look at that. I can't log into MyUnits anymore. I've been banned... From the network...

Please remember to post your time.

Oh wait, no that's just scheduled down time.... Good bye.

The Road Ahead (before it gets extensively re-edited)

2010-11-26T23:46:00.006+08:00

My blog does not represent the views of Murdoch or any of its affiliates. All posts are NOT to be taken seriously and are written only for entertainment purposes.

So here I sit.

Two Jester's pies, one Vindaloo, one Spud Deluxe on the seat next to me. Regular Baskin Robins Triple shake, two scoops Chocolate Mousse Royale, two scoops Gold Medal Ribbon.

You know how there's those times you look forward to for ages, then it gets there and you're like "Oh."

Granted, I am still happy and willing to endure myself through the best meal you can buy for $17.10. It doesn't look like a lot for what you're paying for,but it is the meal I have work 3 long years to get to. You can feel the cholesterol really starting to hit, but then the sugar kicks in and you can start breathing again.

Even, with the sugar rush, my brain will not yet accept this is this end of uni.

Hours of being cooped up in a lab trying to complete a tute. Midnight study sessions cramming weeks worth of readings. Breaking down concepts and creating mnemonics.

I no longer have the opportunity to do any of these as I've run out of time to fit them in.

Maybe. My brain is being pessimistic, the 347 exam went a lot smoother than expected. But I must confess to you, dear anonymousness reader or my mother that the Prac didn't. That my 339 assignment two was rough round the edges and the exam didn't just fall into place as I expected, still went okay, but... Not as easy as the 333 exam. So it was probably a good thing that was last, ending on a happy note. Possibly a B#. Maybe even a C (Music students, you see what I did there?).

As I eat my pie and watch Parry ave in all it's glory, I think about the good stuff which has happened. That if Christian reads this post and really considers whether he wants another year of someone commenting on the relationship status between Alice, Bob, Carol, Eve, Mallory and Trent. (It didn't work out between Bob and Eve :( .... But Alice seems to be coming around...)

And although I do moan about the negatives, I have actually put in work this semester. And the one before that. And the one before that. And the one before that. But not so much the one before that, I still passed everything, but it was the first time I was living alone and it took quite some time getting over the fact I could walk around naked. Except when dealing with a hot kettle. (Ladies out there, the scar tissue has gone down considerably!) Which is why, if all goes well, next year I shouldn't be able to eat this delicious meal as there are no Jesters in Brisbane. Apparently the people of Queensland have no need for pies.

My clearance said what it needed to and I have filled in enough forms to take down a shrubbery. I've got a meet and greet in a couple of weeks, before some flights to find a house. In a few weeks, I should be in a full time job, be solely responsible for a rental property and just, managing myself, bills, social outings, getting to work. I have no family in Brisbane. I... will be forced to grow up very quickly.

Well, that kind of sucks.

The 19th of November 2007 was a very big day for me. It was the day after my last TEE exam. It was the day that I believed I would grow up. Naturally, I rolled over and went back to sleep, before getting up and getting into a few games. Snacking on sugar all day, then going to bed about 1 am after successfully completely nothing. "This" I thought, "was living." This continued for a whole month, getting up, stumbling over to the shops for a milkshake, grabbing my laptop and going to my mate's place (The mate that would eventually become my housemate.)

Although, when I look back on it now, it was a time a didn't really like that much, I don't really remember much of that month at all. The time I do remember gaming and going over my mate's place, was during the last weeks of year 11 and first weeks of year 12 when I should of be doing other things. And I remember it so well because I remember that sinking feeling in my stomach of the work I had to complete later that night.

The month after that, I also remember, because it was very tense. After hearing how badly I'd gone, sitting through a STAT test (Which is VERY annoying more than anything, because the entire time you're saying to yourself "I should have done better, I shouldn't need to sit this. FYI, there was about 70 people sitting it when I did it, so a lot of people are not being good at English.) being relieved to find out that I had been accepted into TAFE, AND THEN... The uni acceptance letter arrived. After the initial happiness wore down, I had to ask myself a serious question:

Am I good enough for uni?

I hand out my only piece of advice that I have said before and will say again. If you EVERY get to consider this question, YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH. Why?

Because uni is still learning. It's still a challenge and if you get offered, except for very rare circumstances, you are good enough for uni.

Lachlan, only 1/3 of people who enter uni graduate.

Shut up statistics man, It's getting better... All of the people I knew for my first couple of units are getting through. Some people are repeating units, some have completely changed courses, the fact is, they're going to finish - And I think, as long as you go in with that finish what you start mentality nothing will stop you.

But the fact was getting that letter told me "It was not all for naught, and you have something to do this year." Although lots of people take gap years, some benefit, some don't, some crash and burn during uni due to the fact they didn't take them. Some don't take them and find themselves three years later with an almost degree and 1 and a 1/2 pies.

And that's the main reason I was overjoyed at this. I'm not just a guy with a degree, I'm a guy with a degree and a direction. As much as I love doing nothing, I realise that nothing is the last thing I want to be doing right now, to be in the knowledge that I will not get to thirty seven and never drive a sport car through Paris wearing a Cossack (Oh come on, we all know there is never warm wind in Paris.). Okay let's lose the melodrama, not be any further than doing IT support. I love IT support, I can get paid very well doing IT support, but I wanna be further up the tree and leave a better mark than just making sure all the printers work. I know all the printers working is VERY important, I just feel I can leave a bigger, better mark.

Okay, not the direction I thought I was going to be. But, if we all ended up exactly where we thought we'd be, that is, where we wanted to be, things would be boring, and I wouldn't be where we're NEEDED to be. Originally I though I was going to Curtin, and this blog MIGHT HAVE NEVER OF EXISTED. Scary thoughts.

I know it's weird to say it, but I kinda secretly believed I always would end up in Brisbane. IBM, I applied for, was told, If successful, you'll most likely go to Brisbane. ABS, if successful, you'll be going to Brisbane. ATO, if successful, you'll end up in Canberra, no ifs, ums or buts.

And would you look at that, ATO, Brisbane. I love the universe when it does stuff like that.

I find myself incredibly lucky, I mean, I know a lot of people said "Dude, ATO? Seriously?" And I'm like "Only grad program that let me in (Okay, that probably says something about their grad program.)." And I'm actually cool with that, re-reading some of the things I'd be doing. ATO was something I applied for just cause it was there and I wasn't too late too. Each of their things was always at an annoying time for me (on a Saturday or a day I was suppose to be at work.) And I always said to myself. "I'm going to end up working for them, it'll teach me for being annoyed at them for not working with my schedule."

Provided I get on rotation to do with security, or IT strategy, I'm REALLY looking forward to it. I've got purpose. Purpose is a lot like spam, it's always sitting there at the back of the cupboard, but when you've got nothing else is the one thing you'll set out to find. Wow, that started out as BS but actually came together quite nicely. I just know that there was a possibility that I could come out of uni and have nowhere to go. But I've got 4426.4 km to go.

So, back to my pie.

Damn, this is delicious. Although I'm regretting working three days a week for the rest of the department's semester, I'm regretting only having 4 days in which to find a place (Well, 4 days physically in Brisbane.), thank you internet for providing me pictures of beautiful properties that I cannot afford, and allowing me to see opening times that I can live in them for 45 minutes. That kinda is interesting, in a couple of weeks, I'll be legally responsible for a property, and that's scary. Mentally responsible for getting myself to work, finding things to do on weekends. Gonna be one hell of a trip.

Note of housekeeping, a particular reader was questing me about the random blue text appearing throughout some posts.

This means you can mouse over and click on the text to link you to a website, websites in this particular blogs are normally expansions of poor jokes, attempts at sarcasm, or puns. I mean, it's not like blue underlined text has been the main referencer to linking between website since the BEGINNING OF THE INTERNET. OH WAIT. Well, granted, you can actually change that blue colour to a different colour in the settings of most browsers, but lately it's being taken over by CSS. I will admit being guilty of putting hyperlinks very close together, such as each word in a sentence. I know that's annoying, but I can so I will.

Okay, now I've finished that pie. On to the next one. Hmmm Bacon and mash...

So I'm sitting there and I realise, that this will probably be the most insignificant moment of the next few months. I love doing nothing, but I only like doing nothing as a present and future tense. The thought of remembering only days of doing nothing sickens me. If I hadn't immortalised this in a post, I would probably think that I had a choc mint milkshake. Also delicious, but I wanted a richer flavour that day, choc mint is good when you want something cool and refreshing with a bitter aftertaste that is not bitter enough to ruin the taste.

I'm not joking what I said before about exams, the thing is, if I don't feel tense now about possibly not completing my units, or needing to take a detour in completing my units such as pleading on my hands and knees to my program chair that I need to be exempted from units I failed, because I have a job starting shortly.

ahem.

I have been asked by my program chair to explain that he, nor any other program chair, will not give out exemptions to anybody, but only in VERY select and rare circumstances. Oh come on, you know I know my stuff I CAN INSTALL WEBMIN!

Okay, now I've been asked by the management of Aquila Septem Pty. Lmtd. Inc. to admit that I didn't actually install webmin on the image that was submitted. Fantastic.

Okay. Is that everything I wanted to say... Hmmm.. Think so. Summing up. I believe I did well in my exams, and if that is true, I can feel I've truly earned my new job next year. And it will at least take ~~Roa~~ Wait I'm not revealing my next blog title yet... Well, it will give it a form of content, and a way for my parents to know I'm still okay and provide play-by-play descriptions of how females in Queensland get just as freaked out as those in W.A., How to hide the holes you've drilled in your rental property in order to successfully implement your star topology in order to get your bond back, and how to lobby for a Jesters to be built.

Speaking of creeping out females. Found out that the source for the statistics I used last time came from an all girls uni.

Interesting Fact #1: There are all girl uni's

Interesting Fact #2: There are at least 5 females doing Computer Science at this uni

Interesting Fact #3: Given that, there is the possibility for a really terrible virgin/geek threesome...

Interesting Fact #4: My mother reads this blog as I say more in a post than I will in a month, and I'm not sure if she should be

but they will be my main venting point during Queensland so I hope she does continue reading them

Now I can't show you graffiti of the week, cause I'm saving up stuff for next post, so I will show you this image

Acer Approved Repair Center? I believe you've underestimated my skills.

In case you are wondering, yes, I got this laptop all back together, with all it's original screws, and fixed the problem (The LCD wasn't working.)

In My Humble Experience...

2010-11-04T21:14:00.001+08:00

My blog does not represent the views of Murdoch or any of its affiliates. All posts are NOT to be taken seriously and are written only for entertainment purposes.

I can feel my palms sweating a little bit, they always do that when I'm nervous. But when you see the next three years of your life written out in front of you on a bit of notepaper, with no idea how much work you're gonna have to put in, no idea if you'll make any friends, and no idea if you're going to mature and become a better person, you'd be nervous to. For the thirteenth time I compare my notepaper to the confusing screen in front of me. Checking the units match up and just hoping that the database on the back of this thing won't break if you hit the refresh button in the browser.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice someone new enter the library learning common from Sir Walter's look over the room very carefully, stare at one particular person one the other side of the room. He stops, his eye's glaze over as if his brain isn't actually thinking about what he's seeing and instead focused on something only he can see. Which is a bit of a problem cause he's standing in a doorway and people want to walk through.

He's a scruffy bloke, only slightly taller than me, his head has been shaved recently although the same couldn't be said about his face, which has an inconsistent fuzz all over it. Another student clears their throat and he's jolted back to reality, he keeps his head down, and he walks quite quickly towards me. All I can think is "Please don't sit near me, please don't sit near me..." as he sits down on the computer opposite, his head completely obscured by his then my monitor. I exhale, it must of been quite loud as I can hear him cough and then splutter what must have been the first thing that came into his mind.

"Did you know that 60% of under graduate students entering a Computer Science major will lose their virginity during their degree compared to only 17% of students entering a Maths major?*"

"Really?" I must of said it a bit too enthusiastically, because he followed up with:

"But you're doing Internetworking and Security, aren't you?"

"Well, that's a bit harsh." I reply, followed by "Wait, how did you know I was.."

He cuts me off "You're leafing through that Cisco book with more excitement than a kid getting a Nintendo 64 for Christmas"

I slightly laugh to myself slightly, getting the reference, hoping that this isn't one of those guys who keeps spitting out meme's every change he gets.

"So I'm guessing you're feeling a little nervous, hey? First semester?"

"Yeah a little. Well, TBH, a lot. I mean, I think about some of the students in here, they are currently deep three thousand words into an assignment I can never understand. I think about that soon I might be in this library at 3 a.m. struggling with an assignment on (I flick to a random page in the Cisco textbook.) RIP."

"A distance vector protocol, like that? Nah you'll be fine with something like that, now multi area OSPF, that'll do your head in.. but don't worry about that."

"I mean, I hope by the time I get to anything like that, I assume that by the time I'm working on that I would of matured enough to correctly organise and prioritise study so that I will do well in everything naturally, rather than my current approach of leaving stuff to the last minute."

He attempts to stifle chuckles. "I'm not saying you won't mature, it's just the leaving it to last minute has been stressful, but more successful for me than it should of been. Which reminds me, start on 339 assignment 2 now, and the readings, you might get lucky and cover about half the unit content by the time you get to the exam."

"I'll bear that in mind... Is it really that bad?"

"It's... Pretty bad."

I quickly search the university website so I can sound like I know more about what I've gotten myself into.

"Geez," I say under my breathe "When will they update this website? It's just a mess of different page versions and so much information."

He must of heard me cause he says "Can you believe they plan to add another version of pages of this website shortly? It's going to be even more of a mess."

"Yeah, but cut them some slack, there must be hundreds of pages in here to update the design of, it would be a mammoth task."

"It's called CSS"

"CSS?"

"You'll learn in 108. Man, you have so much to look forward to."

"But I have to sit through a minimum of 20 exams between now and my leaving this place, I barely handled TEE, man I got such a low score."

"You'll still progress, regardless if you get passes or credits, I know you might be scared about your GPA, but once you get into the workforce, all you future employees will care about is your prior experience. Look, I have a feeling you'll handle things fine, you seem the type of person who really enjoys networking, and if you enjoy it, the stuff sticks in your head easier and exams become a breeze."

"I'm thinking of doing the Cyber Forensics Major as well, it sounds interesting."

"May as well do it, just warning you won't give you any room for electives, but you do get to do a forensics unit in third year that's a lot more interesting than the alternative networking unit."

"But I want to get as many networking skills as possible!"

"You have to do it against network security unit which majors on this topic of things called ACLs, which is considered one of the most difficult concepts in networking, OR you can sit around Monday afternoons and discuss cheese."

"Why cheese?"

"I don't know he just talked about cheese a lot to me, and seeing he was the person marking my assignments, I went with it, as a result however I have gotten into cheese a lot. You also talk about security sometimes, which is very good to draw parallels with a stack of swiss cheese."

"Okay, then, that sounds insane enough that it'd be enjoyable. Sign me up for the second major."

"I know some people who did really well at TEE, yet can't take the whole uni experience and drop out in the first couple of weeks, it's not all plain sailing but I'm sure you'll do good. You seem as ignorant as I was when I first started, and ignorence is good sometimes, don't stop to look at the big picture in uni, just think about the next assignment due, do it in little steps over a few weeks, and all will be well."

"Oh man, the next three years sound so awesome. I can't wait to drive up here in my little gold car everyday, it's gonna be awesome!"

"Yeah, about that.."

"What?"

"Erm, never mind, it is very exciting, but there's going to be some rough times too, I suggest having a spring board to vent to, do you have, like a diary, or blog, or even just a sister to complain to when things get hard?"

"Yeah, I have a sister, and I have often thought about starting a blog, I mean, I did see that Murdoch were holding a contest for an official blogger. But seriously, who would want to read some rambling from a geek, about geek stuff, my problems at uni, my try hard attempts at humour or me whining that I'm not part of the 81% of computer scientists who"

"Okay, I get your point, I just think it be a good place to vent, when exams stress you out, the interesting mess of the Murdoch website and when you decide to hit on a girl on a message board. In any case you could just get your family to read it as opposed to, you know, talking to them."

"I won't deny that does sound good... But I wouldn't know what to write about, my thoughts are very rarely coherent, my spelling is terrible, don't think I'm shallow enough to hit on a girl on a message board and I'd probably just write a whole bunch of run on sentences or bullet points."

"Well, at least consider it, I reckon you'd probably find at least two girls who sounds sane on a message board, look, find some quiet space to try and get inspiration for your first 300 words."

"Might find somewhere quiet, and contemplate a moment then."

"Toilet is empty..."

"Sure, cause there's gonna be a lot of intellectual material in there."

"I'm probably holding you up for some sort of class?"

"oh wooh, it's 20 past, I'm gonna be late, don't wanna make a bad impression by being one of those guys that's always rocking up late to lectures."

"Yeah, cause then your lecturer will totally give you a bad mark."

"SERIOUS?"

"Nah, depends who it is of how tolerant they are, what you got?"

"ICT102 with Christian Payne."

"Actually I wouldn't be late for that."

"What's with the sudden change of tune?"

"Oh it's just cause he's a friend of mine on Facebook and can bag on me there.

Oh and while we're talking about 102, thirty one."

"Thirty One? What?"

"Look, there will be a question, You'll know it when you hear it, and the answer's thirty one, just trust me on it."

"Okay... Don't think I'm going to join Facebook, looks pretty pointless..."

"Totally is. But worth it..."

"So I can have one of my lecturer's bag on me, great idea..."

"It seemed like a good idea at the time!"

"I really do hope I'm more mature than you when I hit 3rd year."

"Yeah, keep hoping that."

"Anyway, I better go, see ya around."

"Hopefully. Yeah, probably, in fact."

"Looking forward to it, I think."

And I just left him there, hoping that some of my advice would stick, hoping that he would enjoy every moment, do some really immature things and some things that he never thought he would would ever do, I hope he hits on some people on a message board, I hope he starts his 339 soon, I hope he wakes up in a shopping trolley with a lamp shade, I hope he keeps saying the wrong answers during lecturers, I hope he eats a bit more, I hope he knows exactly what to say to himself in three years. Should I give him a hug? Would he find that a little gay?

Huh, I also thought that I'd remember a weird conversation like that with myself, but no, I remember everything from this first day at uni, like the fact that he's going to head to the wrong lecture room right now. Damn, should of told him which one it was, I remember just sitting at that desk, checking My Units, getting bored... And moving when a guy stood behind me, I remember moving to the other side of the room... And noticing that he had the same Cisco book as me and... aw crap. I turn around, and see that 10 metres away, on the other side of the library, and see a scruffy bloke, slightly shorter than me, with a shaved head and a chin with fluff all over it... Do I go over and do the conversation again, hmmm, sounds like a lot of effort. It'd probably cause a paradox anyway and I wouldn't exist. So that was a bit of a wasted trip. Ah well.

Wait, so whose life did I just stuff up? I sigh and start moving back for the return trip, and just as I'm walking down behind all the book cases, a guy stops me, he looks deep into my eyes, his serious expression gives way to giant grin.

"Boy, do I have a story for you..."

I blink, stare deep back into his, and after a moment of tense silence, hesitantly ask..

"We got laid yet?"

"Seriously, I can tell you stories about what happens during your next year, results, exam question, future interview questions, how to befriend a few bosses and ask for a payrise, how to present to TED and good topics to talk about, in fact, how to make your life better overall. And yet your still the sex obsessed person I am ashamed to ever be associated with. Grow up, start studying seriously and get your CCNP already, and be serious about it this time."

...

...

...

"... So that's a no then?"

Then, from around a corner, a girl's voice cries out "Can I make my overly dramatic entry now?"

The older man breaks from his grimace into into a great big smile "You really think I'd come all the way back here to give you job advice? I know you better than that."

He runs over and gives me a bear hug, then a fist bump.

"So, you ready to meet her?"

"I dunno, won't this break time?"

"This, is the girl of your dreams who you waited your whole life for..."

"Worth it, then."

"So, erm, got any ideas what you wanna say to her, I mean, this is my present for you for lasting through uni."

"Well. Look, TECHNICALLY, it wouldn't be cheating on you if I"

"Good to hear I haven't matured yet. Look, we'll talk for a little bit, but I think it would just get weird. Anyway, without further ado, I'd like you too meet someone..."

--------------------------------------------------

So, it's been a very intense couple of weeks. A few weeks where I have found I haven't really matured in terms of knowing how to do work when I don't feel like doing work. I mean, this was technically my last day at uni before exams, but it doesn't really feel over, I've still got pracs to do, so everything is a little on edge. You see, I've got the problem of doing a network unit again where all that matters is the prac and the final exam, and that's very bad at the end of the year when I've really run out of steam.

Since we last talked, I've moved back to my parents place which was an experience, as I found just how much dust I'd allowed to settle on everything.

That's the main discovery I've made over the previous few weeks - how I like being spontaneous as long as I have the occasional day of routine. Liking routine is a big problem when I can't get up in the morning without three alarms. However, onto discovery two when yesterday I did get up in time to head to my project meeting. The project's wrapping up, and apart from a boring webpage or my epicly awesome Cisco shirt, we really haven't got a lot to show off like other groups. Which is a pity. When I got impromptu-ly elected as meeting chair and discovered that I'm not very good as a meeting chair as I encourage tangents rather than stop then. This annoyed our usual meeting chair until he took over and we got back on schedule, however, there were a few times there when I got to talk in a serious voice about our progress and got some serious answers from group members, so management does look okay, as long as a better manager is not present.

I mean, it has been nice for my mother to find that I do have some sensible routine like hanging up my clothes after I get home for work, and I've discovered that she's still willing to do my washing, so it's been quite good for both parties concerned. It has been a pity cause now it takes longer to get to uni, so I'm glad I only have one morning exam in a couple of weeks. AND I *DON'T* HAVE THE SATURDAY ONE.

However, I've found that some games tech students have TWO on the Saturday of the study break... Seriously?

But in terms of assessment I have gotten to do one thing that I was kinda looking forward to doing during my time at uni. You see, on that first day during my sitting at that desk in the library I did think that one day I would spend my time at one of the desks fully wrapped in my own thoughts working on an assignment for a few solid hours. These are really good. doing an assignment in the library really limits your distractions, unless you're in the medical journals section researching how to live longer. It gives you the drive to really buckle down and sink a good number of hours into an assignment (and the vending machine with caffeine helps too.). But sadly... The 24 learning common is under threat of being closed. Meaning all-nighters at the Library may be no more. Which would be sad. Which is why it probably won't happen in my opinion. Murdoch management aren't that evil when they know that students actually attend university for something. So ignore the student election blurb that you may get sent if you click the "Like" button and do it anyway.

So, sorry, I don't actually know the secret to time travel, or if it causes parodoxi, or implied causality but I do know that without intervention from myself, I've managed to get through uni okay. This has been one of the nervous semesters though, where I'm not sure how I'm go with everything due to so much riding on exams. As much as I want to break out the Bailey's and chocolate topping, I've got to hold back for now and wait. What makes it even worse is that my final blog post for this blog is pretty much written, and I'm just waiting for at least 3 P's before hitting Publish. So you'll have to wait for that. Sadly I also have a blog post ready for if I ever failed a unit, I've always hoped that you would never see it but only time will tell.

But there has been some good stuff hovering around this blog, more importantly, to me, the searches which have found it: "WAIX torrents" - Unfortunately, unsuccessful, but a good crossover for me bringing up the point that in a recent survey of a very highly regarded international company, 40% of the network traffic was downloading torrents at work.

For those that don't know, torrents is illegal stuff, if you've got a friend, who's got a friend, who can get you the latest eps of True Blood, The Vampire Diaries or Dexter whatever show your are watching to vent your secret feelings of wanting to be in a more exciting relationship (I'm not one of these guys, downloading TV shows is irresponsible, illegal and there are much better places where you can stream TV shows instead which are a lot harder to restrict on a network than torrent traffic. ) On a very serious note people, just because the company you work for has an OC-3 line doesn't mean you should suck it up with something silly like torrent traffic, you can be arrested, you can be imprisoned, YOU CAN EVEN BE FIRED.

Seriously, they are paying a lot for that bandwidth, and it should be used for actual work related stuff, more and more business are switching to VoIP meaning that your voice traffic is running down the same line that your co-worker is trying to get "Sex and the City 2" through. I know which one's more important. And this time it's not the one with the sex scenes. So please, when you're at work, try to stay work related, those network guys can track every packet back to you. Seriously, they'll get the Cyber Police back tracin' your ass.

Now at Uni it's a different story, mainly because I have it on good authority, but I won't name names, that none of the student traffic through the Gateway is monitored. Students run torrents through there on actual torrent ports, rather than moving the traffic onto a more legitimate port. Now the thing stopping people from doing this is the fact that all our internet is paid for through Quota... That is, until, again, from a source I won't name, apparently, next year we will be quota free. Problem being that once Murdoch do this, there will be people who want to abuse the hell out of it and download as much as possible. To them I suggest some Stateful filtering, but again, I hope not to be there to see how they crack down on the people.

Speaking of Quota:

Total Print Quota I've given to Murdoch: $6.20

Ending Balance: $0.33

Total Internet Quota purchased: $5.00

Current Balance: $52.04

"Hello, ITS? I'd like to make a Withdrawal..." or a bigger deposit, I mean, that's gotta be the best interest I've ever seen. Speaking of the word "Interest" why don't we have seperate words for interest that increases a loan and interest that increases a positive balance?

Other search queries bringing people to this blog:

"My sisters humiliate me" - You're doing it wrong, start humiliating them

"Outcomes assessment, University Sucks" You're doing it wrong, start being awesome

"+("murdoch university" "murdochuni" "murdoch uni") - "Rupert murdoch" - AWWW remember using boolean in searches! Aw that was so much fun! Aw you don't? That's right Google haven't supported them (properly) in ages... AltaVista all the way!

"Humiliate Me, Humiliate Me" - Although this blog is indeed quite self deprecating I do it so you will be entertained... ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!

"Blogger porn site passwords" - shoot me an email and we'll talk, to show you I'm serious about the material I have I'll tempt you with this very saucy not safe for work (because you should be working not looking at images or reading this blog at work) image right here

"I told him she was taken" - But I went out with her anyway. Speaking of that found out Stalkee #1 has moved on. Ah well, apparently she dropped the guy she was seeing to go see this other guy, and I know that guy quite well and he's treating her alright, and I know if she was very quick to switch guys and didn't do that with me she must not have been into me, which is kinda sad, but I always have a picture... and a street address... and a lock of hair... and a phone number... and an email address, in fact enough to put me away for quite some time.

"lachlan harris" - Hazzah, the people wanted this, and they got this

"Mr Squiggle's blackboard" - The only thing I remember about him was him being horribly impatient and only having one working eye. Is that really how people remember me?

tiny - I TOLD YOU NOT TO TELL ANYONE

lachlan's last laugh - I didn't get that because they cleaned the stain of the building, now no one will know I spent some of the best years of my life at Murdoch, I'm going to have to do something that will last a bit longer than a stain. Hmmm, a whole bunch of vet students just did a nude calender...

Lachlan Gay Naked - WOOOOOH, I was only thinking about a calender, I haven't taken any photo's yet! However, I do see a point that the constant crying of "I NEED A WOMAN" could lead people to believe I'm gay, as far as I know this isn't the case. Which is a pity cause I really want to stand up at Christmas dinner and yet a big admission. Something like "MUM, DAD, I FORGOT TO PUT OUT THE RUBBISH BINS A FEW WEEKS AGO" but I don't think it would work, but I'm not sure if this would have as an impressive impact as I would like it to.

and last BUT NOT LEAST:

"Wall-e critical analysis" - This makes me feel so good. I know the person searching for this probably has an essay question, like, "Describe problems of large human community migration into space with examples from the film Wall-E" or something just as mundane and making the film tedious. But the potential that my blog may have been skimmed to see some interesting view points of the potential programming of compassion inside an A.I. makes me feel really good. The fact that it does appear in a search engine list. The fact that someone out there may read and see a more interesting point of view to a film that means a lot to me makes me feel very happy indeed.

OTHER big ITS news: The OCC and the new sites!

The OCC, or Official Communications channel is a really good idea, notices that can only be used from a fake inbox in MyInfo that is for, well, official communications. These are the types of email that Murdoch wants you to get and not blame your spam filter. So stuff like Uni fees, Exemptions and other unit related stuff. I recently got one that said "Our records say that you should graduate at the end of the year" go to this site to make sure everything goes okay. So that was kinda exciting. Wish that they could be excited too

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU MIGHT GRADUATE! WE MADE A SITE! YOU SHOULD GO LOOK AT IT! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

But that might not set the right tone.

In other news the Beta tags have disappeared and the new sites for staff and students are finished and looking good!

Wait, it took them about two years to get that site ready... There's still all of MyMurdoch to fix, and the sites for the campus maps, and calender, and glossary.. and okay let's stop there and just congratulate the whole Murdoch web team for at least adding quite a few more pages to the "Looking Sexy" pile and out of the "Made in 1996" pile.

So well done!

Still no tweet to this blog though...

I think I can just about wrap up now though.

I do have some graffiti of the week, so lets look at some pics

"Pantaloons" is a pretty funny word - Indeed it is!

"I LIKE PIE" - Again, graffiti which is truthful, relevant and unanimous! FULL MARKS!

"LOOK LEFT" - Why what will I see?

"LOOK RIGHT" - But there's just a look left sign?! Then I would... Oh... I see what you did there...

"This gate must be open or shut at all times" - Somewhere, somehow a quantum physicist just got really pissed off

Hmmm... All most interesting... Well, until, I get arrested for unlawful time travel resulting in a better future for myself, good bye!

* Source, probably not the best, as it's only from one university, but interesting none the less.

To the future! ...If I don't screw up the present

2010-10-06T01:23:00.002+08:00

My blog does not represent the views of Murdoch or any of its affiliates. All posts are NOT to be taken seriously and are written only for entertainment purposes.

Scenario: My criminal check comes back clear, I pass all my units this semester

Outcome: I spend a hurried few months finding accommodation and getting settled into Canberra, begin doing geek stuff for the ATO and hopefully have a successful career if not at the ATO, using the skills I learnt there to get into a very enjoyable geek job somewhere else. In addition to the completely new atmospheric, I find a very crazy and impulsive girl to test if my new bed really does have "minimal partner disturbance" as advertised. My life truly begins, I mature up and become a unique but very intelligent and influential person who looks back fondly over a life well spent.

Reaction: At this point, a quite likely outcome. Of course, some optimism thrown in there but when something seems possible, it's nice to think about it actually coming true. But seriously, meeting new bunch of people, in fact, a whole new state of people, should be interesting, I'm Perth born and bred, but would love to be able to live two hours in the future. I could warn you of future disasters in my blog posts! Or, even better, what TV to ignore tonight. (The answer is everything.) Although Canberra, from the short time I've stayed there does seem like a country town, it's at least contrary to what I'm used to. Hopefully the people I work with will be geeky enough to vent my love of a good meme or my disgust of a novelty technology

(Daddy, what was TV like when you were growing up? Well, when I was a young adult there was a belief that polarized 3D was a way of the future, and we'd all like to see sporting events where the athletes look like they're running around only a few metres away! SERIOUSLY? That's what you're going to use to make us buy into this crap, is put sport in 3D? Granted your average episode of Bold and the Beautiful isn't really going to look any better if we start televising everything in 3D but the fact is, who looks stupid for paying for a $2500 plus 6x $120 so all your mates could watch a game that ends in a draw. It doesn't improve anything, it just shows your a yuppie. And then this crap continues into the Commonwealth Games, even I will say that's a decent sporting event because it's people from around the world competing on an event that they all agree about the rules, and even the events name. (Can the UN just have a universal discussion about which game should be determined to be "Football" so we can stop having ambiguous discussions?) But the fact remains that these events do not get improved by tricking your brain into believe that there is distance. Go holographic, then we'll talk about 3D TV. And just to make things worse, very few 3D movies are being released as the 3D style. blu ray supports it, most blu ray players can be updated to support it, stop giving me Red Blue glasses from the 50's an start being consistent.

Sony, stop saying that the PS3 is 3D compliant if you don't have any media to show it off, stop believing that you'll make money from the Move. You released a game, that was controlling a guy on a office wheelie chair going down a hill and MADE IT BORING. YOU FAILED. Drop it, consider it an interesting experiment, and go do something decent, like release Uncharted 3, if you want anybody to start up your console ever again.)

I've got a supporting family who'll help me with getting there and give me the push I need to get out of my house and mingle. All I need is a girl who I can vent my crazy to and I'll be set for life (Dearest sister, you have a choice, she's either going to be a geek or insane, choose wisely.). But I shouldn't get ahead of myself.

Scenario: There's a hiccup on my criminal check, and although I complete uni, I have nowhere to go but continue my job at the department.

Outcome: Although depressed at first, finding out which internet activity brought me down will be an adventure, and I'll move up to full time and re apply for grad programs through next year, hoping for the best.

Reaction: It might bode well in the long run, might get into a grad program which gives me more opportunities, but also may end up working for the department for a long time before venturing out into the real world.

Scenario: Regardless of my security check, I screw up exams this semester and my future on the other side of the country is jeopardized.

Outcome: Hopefully, after begging and pleading with the right staff, I get supps and somehow end up out okay. Otherwise, I will be required to withdraw from grad program and spend next year with repeat(s)

Reaction: The one thing is the scenario is the possibility to do some electives until grad programs open up again - The way my double major is structured, I had no room for some units I'd love to be educated in, such as VoIP. Although you may use Skype or have a phone hooked up to your modem that you only use for international calls, cause it's cheaper for them and the latency sucks anyway, your phone communication will be all digital and exist as packets like your internet data. This requires some tricks to get it through a network with priority. If you've ever used Skype you'll know that the internet isn't quite ready to handle this on a large scale (And realise why $43 billion isn't actually that much and once it's spent, you'll never know how you lived without it. For the last time, trust me, I'm a geek, I know what I'm talking about.) And seeing this unit isn't a core for anything, I just think it would touch on some interesting things that I'll eventually encounter in the real world, as more and more businesses change from POTS to VoIP for their internal telephone systems and I'd like to have some education to what I'll face if I'm ever part of a deployment. Even though it seems like most companies are going the software VoIP route, which is at least easier to manage. the ATO use Office Communicator, I believe, which is one of the software VoIP solutions available.

Scenario: A cockroach crawls in my mouth while I'm sleeping

Outcome: Wake up, freak out, knock myself unconscious running into my bedroom door trying to get to my toothbrush, toothpaste and a camera.

Reaction: I'd get to cross out number 5 on my "Things I think would be interesting to wake up having in my mouth" list.

Scenario: I get a 5th follower

Outcome: Oh yeah, that totally happened!

Reaction: Well, I must promote Ashleigh's brilliant blog "Student's Myth's Uncovered" which is a lot like this blog if it was written more succinctly, wittier, providing better information about how to be a successful student at university and not written by a try hard. So it is nothing like this blog and therefore, you should go read it. Although, if you've read this far on this blog and you hate it, yet continue to read it, I'm not sure I can help you. Read it anyway. It's like one of those weird people who go to a restaurant, complain that the food is lousy but eat it anyway.

I don't really get food critics, they're normally chefs, they make good food, they love their own food, they go to another restaurant and complain the food they receive is nothing like the food they make and like... Right... Although open source programmers do the exact same thing.

Although unnecessary, to prove I enjoy it, and have read it, I would like to provide an unauthorised commentry:

In regard to "15 things I would tell my 15 year old self" - Point 2, For having to got into university, and not ruining the space time continuum by intervention, I think you did pretty well. I reckon Point 14 would of solved point 4... You know, just sayin'... Point 7, although I don't know your exact background, and really have no authority to comment, I was made fun of a lot for being "Interesting" at least now at university the insults have at least gotten more.. Educated. Point 10 see here, You know, part of who you once were and all of that.

In regard to being a control freak, if it helps you cope better, ignore the haters, and plus Sheldon has two PhD's and a masters, they're only mocking him, because they envy him. Or at least, I envy him..

In regards to Education, in regards to the noisy balcony dwellers, the accepted statement is "Tits or GTFO." originating from the infamous b community in which to start a thread an image must be posted. The statement is used in the circumstance where a secondary party to the original poster finds that the initial party's post will not add any new or revolutionary incites that will result in further discussion. The secondary party therefore suggests that the first party should post some pornographic imagery as the secondary party believe this will provoke more or better discussion, then what was originally posted. However, in circumstances such as this where the secondary party is simply requesting the pornographic materials and not aiding to the conversation in anyway themselves, I believe that it is acceptable to tell them "IT'S THREE O'CLOCK IN THE FREAKIN' MORNING GO LOOK FOR BREASTS SOMEWHERE ELSE." Ahem.

In regards to the example assignment, if you too want to extend an assignment because you

don't know what else to write. Open up a new word document, type in "=rand(3,27)" without the quotes an hit enter.

In other news I found looking through my statistics, as well as being hit by a number of spam bots, this blog was found and visited when someone was looking for "ICT218 Assignment 1" Now as an unit I absolutely loved, and the fact that I got a decent mark on assignment 1, I have decided to post my ICT218 Assignment 1 up to anyone who'd like a looksee at a good guide for how to get a pretty high mark .

Also looking through my stats, I found that I was being found from this undergrad site where I appear in a spindle adverting Jess' Johnathan's and my blog, with my quote about the amazement of finding other geek, on a pretty good promo site, which only gripe is how the degree's are grouped. I understand that the building is not, and will never be ECLIT, but, putting IT under "Media and Creative Technologies?" The way I see it, Curtin and Murdoch both appeal heavily to Business Students, Curtin also heavily promotes Engineering. ECU caters to arts students with WAAPA, UWA advertises to people who want "UWA" on their degree. But none of these uni's cater for the geeks.

It is a pretty niche field, but Murdoch, I believe you still have the only Cyber Forensics degree IN THE COUNTRY. You could do so much, now I know that you have the "freethinkers" advertising campaign which is good, but when I was looking for a uni to cater for an IT course, I found all of them have them, but they... Don't seem to like to admit it. I'm sure it's similar with a lot of other fields, like I'm not sure how many people know about your chiropractic clinic who should know your chiropractic clinic. Or of your veterinary science program. I guess peoples interest in a course will make people find these things. And I guess advertising a university having an "exclusive" course can come off as the university looking a little.. Well, UWAP itself, but you know, something to think about.

now granted, this site is advertising the open day so this site might have been around since June and me just not know about it.

Ashleigh's blog is still pretty young with only a few posts, but seems like posts will be quite frequent, and it already has more than "I'll bet anything I forget this" Pursuit of Perfect Pasta, which reads similarly and was awesome, if only for one post.

I believe that Murdoch should pick this one up and put it on the endorsed bloggers page next year. I suggest this because most of my dreams about next year involve me leaving Murdoch, i.e. No more "Uni Life"

So this leaves me at a crossroads with what to about this blog, do I leave it uneditable, forever immortalised, hoping that Murdoch stick it on a "Alumni" site somewhere, while I move onto a new blog "Disorderly Accounts of Everyday Life?"

Do I add my Alumni experiences onto this blog so my sister doesn't have to try and remember a new URL?

OR... DO I HAND IT ON.

I'm sure in my audience is a current year 12 or first year student, also wanting to post there experiences after starting at Murdoch. Granted the writing style would change, and it may tarnish the DAUL name to even lower lows. But I wish that Murdoch could recognise the incredible journey of a young boy finding his voice and explaining the geek experience of uni.But atlas, I understand that I am a simple undergraduate, with a very average grade and a very average story.

I should get you to vote on that or something, what do I do with this blog? You the reader! What should I do? I'm not even a graduate, I'm not educated enough to make decisions!

While you mull that over, have a look at this Graffiti of the week, I know it's technically not graffiti, but the only other one I found was something written on a poster about Chlamydia, which was quite sexist, so I thought I'd post something I found which was not as sexist:

And a picture another Sundae that has makes another part of the student balanced* diet

Until the actual future happens, Goodbye.

* Student Balanced Diet: Eat food with hight fat and sugar content, balance with alcohol

You're going to need a ladder

2010-09-24T22:15:00.000+08:00

My blog does not represent the views of Murdoch or any of its affiliates. All posts are NOT to be taken seriously and are written only for entertainment purposes.

Some of you maybe surprised at which another post had popped up, but I have peer reviews, non-functioning requirements, a program OR essay and BGP study to do, so a blog post was inevitable. Additionally, over the course of this short time, a number of people have posed me questions that I believe need to be addressed so here they are in some sort of order.

Communication is an interesting thing. Unifying the understanding of a topic between two or more parties by the use of a collectedly accepted communication protocol is challenging at the best of times. However, there are a lot of us which begin a communication session with very little to say, nothing to say, or no understanding of what we are going to say.

I hate to say it, but I say the last kind of things often.

I hope it continues to mature, but my method of delivering what makes perfect sense in my head, is less than adequate, in fact, I'm not sure if you'd even call it half baked. Frequent readers of my blog would know the stumbling point of when I've missed a word, the annoyance when I use a complicated word because I happen to have a Thesaurus in arms reach, the misspelling of a word, or constantly use 'along' instead of 'along' erm... I mean 'alone'.

Attendees of a lecture I have been present for know of my incessant calling out to voice my opinion or providing a tangent by expanding the current topic into a poorly formed pun. There are periods in which I believe people honestly need to know my opinion, I know they don't, but I believe it's interesting or something they haven't considered, so it is stated. I have a strong belief that a lecturer of mine does read this blog, and I know would like to, on occasion, have a brick, or some other minor signal to put accross the point that I am not longer aiding the conversation, and that the other 5 or so people in the room, may indeed actually want to learn something.

Bearing all that in mind, I have over the previous week, been a selection of situations where I have said things which have led to some very interesting outcomes:

Cousin: "That Sounds like a porn star's name" Me: "You and I watch very different porn." (silence followed by awkward laughter.)

The person I was talking to sort of seemed confused by two things. 1. That I admit to watching porn 2. That I assumed, but the fact that she believed that a name sounded like a porn star, made me believe that she watches porn.

1. I admit to everything. I try not make these statements insult anyone else other than myself, I believe this makes me more outgoing as a person - or at least more fun at parties. But openly admitting to something like watching porn, which to a selection of the population is disgusting, or, not something that you should admit to in a conversation. I got introduced to the concept of sex when I was fairly young, it's quite a number years later and I'm yet to actually experience it, damn right I'm going to keep my research up. Feel like a practical physicist getting egged on by a theoretical one "I asked you to get two electrons really close together is it really that hard??" Even guys get embarrassed talking about porn, which I think is the real problem. Dude, I'm watching porn, your watching porn, let's just simplify things, I'm not suggesting we get naked together, but you know having a chat with a couple of drinks watching a movie is much less shameful than sitting in a room on your own hoping no one knocks on the door.

2. I've always wanted to perform more absurdest sketch comedy. Ever since my first discovery of Monty Python, I've always loved the idea of saying something really stupid in a conversation and people around me just going along with it. Whilst other onlookers just get confused. Sadly there is very little spontaneous improv in Perth. And as much as I'd like to form my own group I am yet to meet a significant amount of people with the same want. A few people, yes, enough even for my 'rave in an elevator' idea, but I would really like doing something a little bigger.

The point is, I just got a bit depressed when she thought I believe that she watched porn, I know she's the type of person who didn't. I was doing it for a laugh and didn't realise that you might think it got aimed at you. That was not my intention.

In apologising for posing the allegation, there was the unfortunate affect that it just amde the moment more awkward, sort of that joilting moment out of a play when an actor yells "prompt" Accidentally losing your focus, and realising that the world presented in front of you is a lie and the actors are simply reciting dialouge from a story in which an author has cleverly controlled character and plot. Kinda makes you wanna wish you had a trumpet to at least fill the pause with that really overused Cat Empire sample from a couple of years ago.

Geez, you see what happens when you let me go out on a tangent, it just sort of goes everywhere. No wonder murdoch wouldn't put me on their Twitter feed. WELL, MURDOCHUNI, I've asked nicely, now I'M GONNA PULL OUT THE BIG GUNS. I'M GOING TO POLITELY SUGGEST TO BROCK TO PERHAPS MENTION this short url IF HE HAPPENS TO COME ONLINE ON MSN AND IS PERHAPS THINKING ABOUT TWEETING SOMETHING TO MURDOCH UNI AND WOULDN'T MIND ADDING A FOOTNOTE.

Yeah, you know I'm serious. Look if it is about the topics I talk about, I'm sure we can come to some sort of arrangement, it's just I'd like this blog to sort of be known enough so when I leave "This graffiti now viewable on DAULMurdoch" some people know what I'm talking about. And more importantly, would make me feel that the university doesn't actually mind the fact that I have $600 worth of parking permit off them.

Thing I said number two: "FUCK. YEAH."

I remember the first time I swore. I said it quietly, barely under my breath. Just trying it on for size. It did feel good. Rebellious. I was 12. I do hate to admit I swear, not because it's rude, but because it's admitting that you don't know many words. Granted, test have shown letting off swearing during acts of extreme pressure and pain due to the unaccepted nature of the terms release endorphins, helping ease the pain. I do find it a pity how accepted into the common vernacular they have become, because there are awesome adjectives out there. But the beauty with swear words is just the fact that they get adapted into all forms of speech, verbs, adverbs, you can use it as just about anything (Not Safe For Work, not classy, and you've probably seen it before from that idiot who keeps sending you videos. I'm talking about you Steve. Not Cool. (And, for those so inclined, the anime version.). However, working at a high school I have met people who quite literally (Don't you mean figuratively? I Literally know no people who know the meaning, or use the word figuratively in everyday conversation. ... That's not funny. Yes. Yes, yes it is.) don't use any other words to extend their sentence, and it makes me sad. Partially because it makes it lose it's punch. I recall that I have sworn on the blog before and HUMBLY APOLOGISE to anyone this may have offended.

My mother has found out way too much about me already. I'm not sure how much of this blog my mother has read, but she's promised me that she read a large amount of it, and wondered how a person who rarely speaks, has so much on his mind that he believes other people should read.

But I have tried to only use it in circumstances where I don't think anything else would of worked. I use font effects such as bold to differentiate the people talking in my head because I don't think people read bold in their head very loudly, just differently. Caps lock does add something, but when you are talking about the ten seconds of film which speaks to you very loudly that you wanna get up do something about something you have no control over, so it just bubbles inside you until the voice screams profanity into the very depths of your soul until

TANGENT DETECTED. What? Oh. As I was saying, I don't mind people speaking profanity as long as it's really trying to stress a point. I was told off in second year for misusing the word "epic" in regards to fails and wins, calling fails epic, when they were indeed, regular fails. In doing so, I found epic lost it's meaning, and started using Uber and Astronomical too much, and the cycle was getting worse, luckily as a frequenter of the internet, someone was soon to re-correct my assessment of fails and wins so I didn't look like a douche on the internet, which is a challenge. Speaking of hygiene of the privates though,

INAPPROPRIATE TANGENT DETECTED. I really wanna talk about some intimate personal hygiene products that I found very interesting, specifically it's about this gynacalogically tested deodorant I found whilst looking for tissues.

VERY INAPPROPRIATE TANGENT DETECTED. Dammit, there's this bit I wanna do about the weird things about smell pretty and I have no outlet for it, (I'm never going to get that tweet now, am I?) Facebook is filled with family members, I have no idea what the readers of this blog are offended by and the fact that one of my posts has been considered containing valuable information for study papers. (Yes, I know it was done by a search troll, it was picked up of the 74th search result page for "Need assignment site:blogspot.com, so got an automatic comment.) And another one of my posts has become an placement for an infomercial which I don't have the heart to delete due to the fact that it joins a total of 31 comments across all my posts.

Darn I would of loved to perform at the stand up on Tuesday but unfortunately never saw the place I could apply. I really wanna vent some of this blog as stand up, of course drastically shorten it. And add power point slides, cause more stand up needs power point. to at least show how to properly use power point. Either do that or a LIVE post, just have a Skype call or a live cast going the entire time I'm writing the post, so people can suggest ideas ask me to clarify things and generally put a voice and a face to a wall of text. I'm serious, email me some times and you can help me get a post which doesn't just derail into every experience I have encountering a person of the opposite sex.

"You want some company while you wait?"

Although my social life alternatives generally serve me well in terms of talking with the outside world, there are occasions when i find myself in situations that large amounts of people would find 'normal.' Last Saturday I went out clubbing, and for the most part, it was sitting wondering how people can live in these situations.

I've talked about this before, but I'll say it again. If I wanted to sit with a bunch of people I've met, attempting to talk in an environment where it was impossible to communicate, while a bunch of people sit/dance near who I don't know, who have no intention of communicating or acknowledging my presence, I'd fess up to my illegal online activities (of which I partake in none.) and spend some time in prison where the food and drinks are cheaper.

For one part, what drinks do you serve? There is apparently a list somewhere of all the drinks you can get in clubs\bars, and I'd like to see it. Don't just say "What would you like?" I haven't been out drinking much, I have only tried half a dozen mixers, how do I know what I'll like? Has everyone ordered all of the drinks so they know what they like? Or do they just find one they like and stick with it? DAMMIT, JOHN, I'm a network engineer, not the owner of the second largest health and fitness chain in the greater London area, I need declaration of my parameters!

Oh and every second place is booked out with a private function, so not only do people only like socialising with only the people they know, the also must have no one else around disturbing them. Stay home. save money, and sit in your boring everyday surroundings, with your everyday people.

Is there a club somewhere, which acts like Omegle or Chat Roulette? Don't laugh like that. Yes, I know you've seen way too many naked dudes on Chat Roulette to take it seriously - I think I'm onto something here. You sit at the bar or at a table, you talk, but after a random period of time your chair moves around and places you with another group of completely random strangers. You are forced outside your comfort zone and talk with people you may hate, you may find you like. There are 6+ billion people in the world, and people are forced into friendships with people who they work with on a daily basis, there's thousands of people out there a lot of whom you'd get on with, but will never meet because there will never be introduced. Even the Facebook friend finder normally just picks up friends of friends which you already know, rather than picking randoms from the other side of the planet which you have similar status updates with.

If you could go out and TRUELY socialise, well you never know what might happen. Sure there will be people who abuse this for one night stands, people who get into fights after being matched up with people with no common ground, but the first version of /bin/passwd would only allow one person to run it at a time. These sing only get worked out through beta testing.

Of course you could expand on this to make sensors and microphones pick up what conversations you are talking up and force like minded people to meet up, but that's no really the point.

There's a ballroom dance called Snowball, which uses this theory the compare yells "Snowball" you get with another partner. And you're forced to dance with them for a couple of minutes, so the ideas not new, so there, dear Murdoch, my "Free Thinking" idea to improve the world. Bars that make you meet people. And I didn't need to get together with a free thinking sociologist, I thought of it all by myself. Alone. On a Friday night. Wishing I had something to do.

Either that, or an alarm clock that makes no noise. There's times when my alarm clock has gone off and I haven't got up, and just switched it off, cause it's just annoying. So here we go, an alarm clock which wakes you up naturally. The body responds to sunlight a LOT. You're body becomes naturally tired in a dark environment, and the real reason it knows to wake up in the morning is because there is brighter light than there was when you went to sleep. So about 1/2 an hour before you set your alarm to 'go off' a light attached to it naturally lights up at a speed that will naturally affect the body and wake it up and ease it out of sleep nicely. If there was any noise, it would be a natural morning noise... Birds, leaves rustling... lawnmowers. That one I did come up with talking a human biologist. Not free thinking mind you, very straight forward and logical thinking, in fact. Of course, there is also the debate that the body will abruptly wake up alert to physical stimulus. So if you could get a timer and connect it to a vibrator then maybe.. Maybe waking up could be a most enjoyable experience indeed... I am aware these sort of alerts are available to the deaf and hard of hearing, but you know, if they wake people up better, than why am I left with BEEP BEEP BEEP every morning. You have a crap day when it starts on a bad note. And I'm just saying maybe the human race could collectively have a much better life experience if waking up every morning was.. erm.. Fulfilling.

Where did my tangent monitor go? Because what I was going to talk about was a night in a club where I saw a girl alone in the corner, Matt and I had run out of things to talk about, so I decided to invite her in on a conversation cause she was bored. The first bar we went to, we were assumed to be on a date. I mean, two guys go out there immediately in a relationship? Whatever happened to 'on the prowl? Okay, one of our drinks were pink, but that's because of not knowing what drinks are available.

Why won't this magical list of drinks available in bars include my alcoholic milkshakes? I mean, the sucky thing about alcoholic drinks, is that people drink them slowly, cause of the throat burn. Downing beer is considered impressive by groups wanting to out primal each other because they can tolerate large amounts of the burn. This could be solved by non-"stereotypically feminine orientated" drinks that taste
awesome and not like cleaning products.

Also there should be a way to accurately calculate how much alcohol you need to make you enjoy everyday situations. I mean, the main reason that people seem to drink is to forget their mundane BEEP BEEP BEEP mornings by turning up the glare. When people act like idiots when they're drunk, that's no fun for the people around them.

So yes, 1/4 cup of chocolate sauce at the bottom of a big glass, blend together 1/2 a cup of Kahlua , a cup of milk, two scoops of mint choc chip ice cream, poor it on the sauce, spray of cream, drizzle of caramelized sugar and I'd take anyone on in a skulling competition with that. Diabetes and alcohol poisoning all in one glass... Seriously, where did my tangent monitor go?

So I walked up to the female sitting alone, females attend meeting places like this in groups to fend of single creepy people coming up to them wanting to chat. Normally with one token male, who will spontaneously become anyone's partner in order to appear taken. Just an observation I have come across... So I first asked if she was waiting for someone, she said yes, so I went back to my table and waited a couple of miutes.. She's still alone, as long as I don't go over looking like I'm trying to chat her up, I'm going over there because the conversation with Matt has faded into wondering where we could acquire some cheap barstools... Damn, I'm starting to realise how we could be interpreted as a couple of guys on a date.

We need female company. Screw it, the worse she can do is say is "fuck off" and then mace me and I've always been curious to what mace feels like. Lachlan, come on you can do this, you touched at least 70 randoms at a music festival, you can convince one random to sit and have some friendly conversation till her mates arrive.

I ask if she'd like some company she collects her things, moves back to our table and the conversation keeps us there another couple of hours. Which is nice. Getting to hear the phrase "Au Pair" in everyday conversation. Not really my kinda girl, but good in proving to myself that I can talk to anyone and talk normal conversation.

So there it is, three small phrases which went to weird places.

Graffiti of the week, you deserve some, you read through this, it's been a few blogs since I've posted some, so here it is... Just for you.

"Toilet Walls, the original Internet" "Must be a dodgy ISP cause I'm always logging off in here."

I see what you did there... But what are you filling the tubes with?

"What happens if I give up my 2 fav Drugs?" "You will be unbelievably (Although here it looks like they tried to write three different words and instead mushed them all together.) bored when there is nothing good on TV"

Until I think of something else to say, Good bye.

The eye of the beholder

2010-09-15T18:45:00.001+08:00

My blog does not represent the views of Murdoch or any of its affiliates. All posts are NOT to be taken seriously and are written only for entertainment purposes.

So I found it, I found the result of what happens when you pay someone to make the university "Less Grey"

It becomes green.

No actually, Creepy's graffiti comes in all different colours, that are much brighter than the grey they cover.

Covering two walls of the second level of the ECL main courtyard

The internal sides of the stairwell and random poles

It does indeed brighten the place up, together with fact that the area is now covered, people can sit and admire the pretty artwork while it's rainy and grey outside.

But graffiti of the week? Hmmmm... I dunno, don't get me wrong, the area is now a lot more pretty, and seeing it's the area I spend ~~most of my time in between classes~~ ~~wait that's the ref~~ where I walk between most of my IT classes (I have lectures in Education, Veterinary Science and Chiropractic, I believe this done on purpose by the university so students don't get bored of seeing the same areas all of the time. Granted, that is nice to see different areas, but Veterinary science still smells like animals have defecated in there on more than one occasion. But granted, the nearest toilets are miles away and have you ever tried to move a horse which needs to go? Not pretty.

I was told about this artwork early this year, being the one blogger who does cover the artistic form of vandalism (and the proof that students do occasionally bring pens to class.) I have been looking forward to see what you get when you pay a graffiti artist to, well, graffiti. It was described by Creepy (The artist, I've found that graffiti artist do love their tag names to be adjectives. Wish this trend was around during some other art eras. "Psychotic Destitute's Chair" has a certain ring to it.) that "the viewer may make their own interpretation of the story" (Which I've always used as "I can't be bothered to tell you the story over and over." or, the more arty "I just drew a bunch of lines, your brain can do whatever it wants with that.")

I mean, this is good, Murdoch's suppose to be a place of free thinkers.

But isn't our art suppose to represent a place of academia, and about the high quality of learning that takes place here?

And then I realised, that's exactly the point. Murdoch isn't trying to show itself a place of learning, but a place of creativity and unique thinking. By the time people decide to go to university they do have the means to form their own understanding, their own forms of learning. Sure at uni, you are still getting taught by people who know more than you (Please don't act otherwise, it ruins it for the people who are trying to learn. Please also don't pretend your funnier than the lecturer, it doesn't score you any additional marks. I've got 3 passes on my transcript to prove it. Just laugh at his poor jokes and he/she is more likely to help you when you get stuck.) but that doesn't mean you know nothing. When you go to uni, your here to mold your interpretation of the world in order to identify what you believe to be wrong change it for the better.

I hope all people reading this who are thinking about university next year begin to contemplate this. You are no longer a passenger, you have an opinion, and provided you back it up with reasoning (APA 6th, preferably, unless your tutor says otherwise.) you have the right to be listened to and add to discussion. Congratulations, you are beginning to be perceived as mature. Don't go crazy, and give your opinion about everything (Again, 3 passes on my transcript.) but if you believe it will add to the ideas of that school of thought, welcome to the place to share them.

Granted, if Murdoch really wanted to be the place to bring free thinkers together, I think they should of just given out cans of spray paint and told people to "Go for it." But then your probably would of got Education and Humanities looking really pretty done by all the arts students, the law building looking very arty, but having really no point (Look at the art in a law firm and you'll know what I'm talking about, or a post I write about the Law building already, a while ago.) and the guild looking like... I really don't wanna know.

So yes, sitting on level 2 of ECLIT now does look very pretty. Unfortunately, everywhere else in the uni is still predominantly grey, but it's a good start, and I'm guessing quite expensive for how big the murals are, but certainly better.

So the covering, the art, and one more thing has been done to the courtyard, which, I do actually have the authority to talk about.

Actually to tell you the truth I don't know what model it is or where it is, I just know it's a Cisco Aironet dumb access point. This is just the model used in other areas of Murdoch.

So yes, this area can now be accompanied by the sound of people frantically typing, or the latest Barely Political remix of the latest meme (Quick lesson. Rhymes with cream, although I think it should actually be pronounced the other way as it sounds more classy.) that your grandma keeps posting to you. Antoine Dodson actually made that his ringtone.

Now I'll try to reveal too much, all the information I'm about to tell you is avalible from the murdoch IT support website. But I thought I would help future/current students with one of the few things that I can actually aid students in understanding.

Okay, so the wireless network at Murdoch covers a bunch of places the IT group think students sit, and for the most part, it's pretty decent coverage and good speed. But a few questions get asked to geeks like me about the network, ir oder to understand and trouble shoot connecting,

Firstly, why must I use a program to get a connection?

Well the truth is, you don't if you connect to the other network, whose SSID I will not reveal here, you should be able to just get through with your Murdoch username and password. However, it is discouraged, as it's not as encrypted and the IT group don't like people connecting through it, I haven't got a statement as to why, just, ignore what I just said, okay? I'll tell you a bit how it works, yes, it's going to get slightly geeky hear, just roll with it.

So, the application you are asked to use is the Cisco VPN client now the Virtual Private Network software connects to a server containing information about the VPN connection. The program asks you to provide a config file, which contains an encrypted group password. Murdoch uses IPSec (Is that revealing too much, serious Murdoch guys, email me and I'll happily remove any of this, I just believe the students should understand why it's complicated.) The configuration file you are required to have imported into the Cisco VPN client contains an encrypted password which is checked if you are allowed to connect to the server, once this is accepted, you are asked to provide your Murdoch account details.

In requiring this encrypted password and your credentials, crackers and geeks can't abuse our Wifi?

Is there a way to add my log on credentials to the Cisco VPN thingamy so I don't have enter them all the time?

Yes.

Are you going to tell me?

No.

What about if I sleep with you?

You just used the word "Thingamy", instead of client software. So, no. There is also a way to extract the encrypted password so you can use you operating systems native VPN client, but I won't tell you this either cause it's actually more of a hassle to configure, but it means I get access to the Murdoch WiFi on my phone.

I do not encourage or endorse finding out this information as it will be of no use or benefit to anyone. Except if you have a 64 bit operating system, as Cisco does not make a 64 version of their VPN client, however, programs like NCP are 64 bit compatible and allow the importing of the pcf file, but it does cost a little bit of money, but that's your own fault for using a 64 bit OS and not accepting that the world is still vastly 32 bit.

Except if you find a hack for that program and crack it.

MOVING ON. Before I get into more trouble, the university then requires a secure connection between your computer and the link out to the internet.

Now for those of you wondering what exactly the internet is, it a number of computers hosting web pages each with a unique IP address, and a number of other computers that turn the humanly nice "daulmurdoch.blogspot.com" into 66.102.11.191, obtain the number 66.220.153.11 out of Facebook.com, and 64.202.189.170 when a person requests pornographic materials. An IP address is a lot nicer for a computer to interpret.

Although if you type 66.102.11.191 into your browser bar, you'll just go to the Google homepage, as this blog is owned by blogger, owned by Google, your browser knows to go to this blog page cause it's awesome, and wonders why you should want to visit any other page.

Speaking of this blogs IP address:

FUCK YEAH!!! NOW YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE!!

Speaking of excuses to visit this website, Blogger are now keeping stats from blogs, and I'd just like to share a few with you now.

From May 2010 to Today September 15th 2010,

I have had:

1,091 unique visits
391 visits over August alone,
9 visits yesterday
My most popular post has been this one, the placeholder
The most popular website that had lead people to this blog has been the endorsed bloggers page
Search phrases through Google which have lead people to this site have included "tiny" "I told you she was taken" "lachlan harris" "the number right" "boob magic" "girl boobs roller coaster" "lachlan murdoch house" last night cramming" and, last but not least "LG KS660" I phone which I have never owned, but find interesting. and "girl boob rollercoaster"?? You put one soft porn image on a webpage and you get all sorts of weirdos... 5 to be exact
62% of visitors view this page in Internet Explorer (Shakes head with shame.)
Although most of my traffic is from Australia, I had my second top visitors from the US, and 121 visitors from the Netherlands (Legal pot apparently makes this blog quite viewable.)
40 views from Ukraine
More readers in Russian than in the UK
If you total all the readers in South Korea, Hong Kong, and Luxemburg you get a higher number than the total people enrolled in all of my units this semester.
There's even a dedicated reader who requires this page to be translated into Portuguese

And you thought statistics weren't interesting. To all you readers, and to all you bots and trolls abusing this address in DoS attacks, thank you.

However, I could get more visits. Murdoch, look you've been posting other peoples' blogs on your twitter feed. And I know we haven't gotten on the best, but could you post mine. Look I provided all this invaluable information to students about the graffiti and about wireless, so, come on, look, would it help if I did the URL shortning? http://bit.ly/cnHNGG Please?? PLEASE??

So anyway, to get to the outlet to the internet at Murdoch you need to create a tunnel to that computer using secure shell, now Windows does not have a program to do this, so you need something like puTTY in order to create this connection. Unfortunately there is no way to circumvent these security procedures if your wanting an eassier system, but just think about how encrypted the connection is! The packet must be encrypted firstly by the tunnel, then by the VPN connection - trust me, these is probably the most secure, unleachable and untappable connection possible. Murdoch network designers... You did good at this bit. But your group password choice is a bit weird.. Seriously? That? I guess you weren't planning on entering it very often. For all those wondering, No, you wouldn't guess it if you tried, even if you had an attack running, the programs I've got estimate it would take about 3 years of brute force (about the time it has taken me to get to this point in my degree.) with the laptop I'm using currently, so, it's not worth it.

Why do they make you pay for quota to use the internet?

Well, it so people just don't endlessly download and abuse the privilege with torrents, etc.

You can get a torrent through the SSH?

I am not at liberty to say. Also, no, they have blocked it.

Isn't it true that Murdoch has the most expensive internet out of all the WA universities?

I believe so, but we have the best refund policy - I put $5 on my Internet quota during my first semester at Murdoch and currently have $47 of quota. I believe IT students get a pretty big chuck as there is the believe we need it for our studies the most. Which is true, but WoW and porn cost significantly enough without the added expense of paying for quota

I was disappointed to find 64.202.189.170 did not contain pornographic material

Oh yeah, cause I'm really gonna post a porn site on my blog, I'm not that low brow. I don't even pay for porn, I'm all class.

Cause not paying for porn makes it so much more high brow.

Yes it does. I believe I have time for two last questions before I have to wrap this up.

Is there going to be a graffiti of the week this week?

I showed you Creepy's work. That stuff was paid for. Go enjoy it. One more...

Is there any reason why the university doesn't just set up a WPA2-Enterprise setup, that way students would only have to enter in their credentials once, the computer could then be issued an encrypted digital certificate, and the user would not need to enter their passwords in again. Any traffic outside WAIX could be monitored and still paid for using quota and sent through a HTTPS session authenticated via the same digital certificate.

I'm sure there's a good reason that it would mean they'd need to restructure their current infrastructure and by only using WPA2 encryption, it means once that standard is broken, then their whole network would be vulnerable. May I ask you a question?

I guess so

Would you sleep with me?

You said that when multiple websites hosted on one IP address, the computer knows which one to go to "because it's awesome." So, no.

Well played.

For more information on the artwork see here.

For more information on how you can set up your computer for the wireless, see here.

To check if a website is free or not check it here.

To check your own quota level, click here, now you will have to click through a warning that the certificate has expired, you are free to ignore this, it means they don't want to waste money on a website that no one uses now that quota is displayed next to the battery icon in MyMurdoch.

To see this website in Portuguese, click here

For the Murdoch Twitter feed, see here.

For the website not containing the pornographic material, click here.

One last thing, Murdoch IT Services, could you PLEASE get EndNote X4, I'm using Office 2010 now. Oh, and if it's not too much trouble can you make it that I can download it off the internet, every time I need it it's about 2 in the morning and I don't wanna bother the IT staff and sign another form.

Until I get banned for disclosing too much about the Murdoch network, Good bye.

Nostalgia is immediate

2010-08-30T22:35:00.000+08:00

My blog does not represent the views of Murdoch or any of its affiliates. All posts are NOT to be taken seriously and are written only for entertainment purposes.

Looking back, last week was actually quite good. In fact, really good. The previous week (Starting 15th August On the Civil, Islamic and Hebrew calenders, Starting 16th August for those who follow ISO 8601. Did you know that New Years Day CANNOT fall on a Sunday? That's right meaning no new years party will be on Saturday night and be on the correct day - Whoever made it was really against weekend partying. - I'm talking about you Gregory.) I had attempted to attempted to set lots of goals about uni, work and social commitments, all which epicly fell through, so I was pleased throughout last week, where everything went a lot better than I expected it to go.

Monday started good as all my lecturers were cancelled due to illness, which is bad cause it was the first time one of my lecturers had ever cancelled his lecturers, but it saved me the embarrassment of walking in late. Guess I could still be getting there

Walking in late to a lecture goes like this:

You walk in to a room full of students and a lecturer that all turn and look at you.

This causes the recorded lecture to have a dramatic pause, and everybody listening at home two hours before the exam is going to begin, goes WHAT HAPPENED TO THE AUDIO? And frantically start turning up the volume, you on the other hand remember walking in late and hang your head in shame even though it was several weeks ago

The lecturer then tries to continue with what he was saying, he'll let out maybe two words which causes the people at home to freak out and fall off their chairs at the sudden noise.

However, this distraction you caused has made the lecturer loose his train of thought so he goes silent again. The listeners at home turn the volume up again and everybody in the lecture looks at you again and you hang your head in shame, or sometimes stare back if the reason for being late is better than sleeping in or losing track of time.

The lecturer regains his composure and begins halfway through his sentence, not only do you have no idea what he's talking about the listeners at home have again fallen off their chairs.

It's one of the most embarrassing things ever, only just beating turning up on time but forgetting to put on pants. (Your talking to a veteran here.) It is very embarrassing, that is.... (Of walking in late to lecturers, not walking into lecturers without pants.) until the next person walks in.

But instead of going through that ordeal I rushed into a totally empty classroom before reading the note on the door. So I went to the library and ICT347 LECTURERS AND LABS ARE CANCELLED DUE TO ILLNESS. Caps lock impact loses it's effect when a whole message is capitalised. Just sayin'. That goes to all you people who THINK your message is important and chose to capitilise it all. Capitilising is like highlighting, YOU DON'T HIGHLIGHT AN ENTIRE BOOK, A WHOLE SENTENCE CAPITILISED LOOKS LIKE YOU DON'T KNOW HOW A BUTTON WORKS. THE CAPS LOCK BUTTON IS A TOGGLE, PUSH IT ONCE, IT ON, PUSH IT AGain and it's off. That's better.

My 339 lab was still on and was good as we all just talked about the election. Which I am not going to talk about because apparently people are happy with slow internet, only being able to get wireless, internet cut outs, copper cabling that's now over 100 years old and think that the occasional boat full of people fleeing their country is going to put our entire society into disrepair. And due to that, we now have this but that's okay cause it means for five minutes I can watch bits and pieces on Australia from different news shows from around the world, see social media being affected by real world events... Then being eclipsed by more important issues.

It gave me the chance to submit some 339 work so I felt like I had actually been doing things in those labs, so that was nice, then I went home early and had a leisurely day.

Tuesday wasn't very major, just a day at work then I came home.

Now, I work for... Um... Let's just call them "The department." Now I work at a sub-branch of the organisation, one of it's many fine "Facilities." Recently, over a period of time now extending to a couple of years, a selection of other people who work for "The department" have been using social online mediums to interact with friends during their day to day activities, however, content of these interactions has been somewhat, erm. "Not in the best interests of the department." Such as two intoxicated females actively exploring their sexualities in a display of strong public display of affection. The physical evidence of this act, published without proper privacy controls, or being shared and reposted through friends until it got into the public domain. But it hasn't just been drunk chicks making out that has been causing unrest with the department, it has been the meer act of these interactions occurring during scheduled work time. And rightly so, your are being paid to carry out a set of functions, and if the progress of those functions is hinded by the processional of non-fiscal (Hands up who only knows this word because it was over used during the election campaign!) driven personal gains, then its understandable. But when the department suggests to not mention any staff, the interactions of a day to day basis, eventful or otherwise, on such mediums which could be easily accessible to people who might want to take those statements out of context for personal gain or defamation of others, it makes me a sad panda. So hence, I cannot really discuss what goes on at work.

Wednesday the week got interesting again with a meeting of my IT Project guys then went really well, I'm stuck with stereotypes that IT projects never really get off the ground and there's constant conflict, none so today as we started laying the groundwork for our first submittables. At least from a documentation side, as well as a planning side, the project looks like it could come together as well as an A-Team job... Only with unfortunately less explosions. I've been given the task of librarian, a task which I have accepted with more gusto than I probably should.

The task is the management of ALL produced documents and their document versions. I find it interesting not to read official documents, but the document revisions, it's interesting to look at how much work went to an article to get it right, and version numbering has always interested me I don't know why, I blame my sister who worked in archiving for years and has a degree in it. The couple of times I've done software clean outs, I just can't throw out old versions, but I keep them for prosperity. I watched a 15 minute video of someone unboxing of Windows 3.11 and found it some of the most interesting footage to see what promotional material has changed over time. I like having multiple versions of Nero (v4 - v9), Windows (All the way back to MS-DOS 5), Fedora (Down to Core 2), Intel Chipset motherboard (I don't have all, but I have the accompanying CDs of 8 different chipsets. I'm just one of those people which believe these things should be preserved.

So anyway, I get to manage documents and be aware of all the changes, so far we've only done one document but it has been enjoyable that everyone has gotten along so far, but I believe we need to change our numbering standard, the first document went from v0.1 - v0.9 and luckily, that was the submittable version, we might not be so lucky with future documents, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

So, document written up, client communicated with and overly long lecture on Project Management cancelled (But instead replaced with a FOUR HOUR horror this Thursday. That's right, he's expecting us to come to a four hour lecture during the break, and when an entire team hasn't shown up since lecture 1, he's very optimistic...

Yes, Mum..

That's all well...

and good...

OKAY, I'll go

Sheesh.) Okay this brings us to Thursday, which my 339 lecturer was better enough to continue our lectures on encryption, now everybody in the computing world finds encryption a difficult topic, but I'm feeling brave, so I'll try and explain some of it to you

Today I'm going to teach you about cryptography.

Okay, so Alice wants to send a message to Bob. It's kind of personal so she wants to encrypt it i.e. Make it only readable between her and Bob. She decides to use the basic Symmetric Protocol to send it.

- Alice and Bob agree on a cipher (The scheme in which they are going to use to encrypt a message.)
- Alice and Bob agree on a key (A once only use code that will determine how the cipher will encrypt the message.)
- Alice encrypts the message and sends it. It's here where it gets a bit complicated.

You see Alice has a crush on Bob, and unbeknown to her he has recently started going out with Eve. Now Eve is the jealous type and has been listening in on their private channel and although she can't actually read the message, she is good friends with Alice and thinks that this message could be her admitting her undying love for Bob, and is so disgusted, that she quickly contacts Bob promising that if she sees her now that she will let him get to third, to which she has been denying him, but not before Bob has the time to decrypt Alice's message and realise that he too wants to be with her so he has sent an encrypted message to her returning her love, before, quite rudely, joining Eve, because hey, she was immediately there, and he'll proceed to break up with her after this afternoons main event.

Now Bob's encrypted message is being sent to Alice, but on it's way it get intercepted by Mallory, who, although a friend of both Bob and Alice, has unfortunately spent the past 5 years fantasising about Alice. Being friends with both, Mallory knows the block cipher scheme they use and after interpreting the patterns she successfully opens the message, the contents of which enrage her, so, being of sound mind alters the message pretending to be Bob to explain to Alice that he is currently seeing Eve and, therefore, cannot be with her and sends the message along.

Bob then goes to Alice's place after leaving Eve in tears for a very painful, very quick break up, to find Alice in tears, with Mallory comforting her, who proceeds to push Bob out for "the terrible way in which he broke the news to Alice."

Bob goes home a broken man, confused and alone, but on his front step he sees Eve. Mallory had forgotten to re-apply the encryption key, so Eve just saw a plain text message and she walks up to him and whispers in his ear

"I know how to help, get over Alice." She said "Now Alice is gone, but I'm still here you know I've been waiting twenty four years..." and Bob's frown disappeared... He said "I don't know why she's leaving, or where she's gonna go, I guess she's got her reasons but I just don't wanna know, now I gotta get used not receiving clear text from Alice..."

And although Bob is now happily with Eve, and Alice will eventually be turned by Mallory (Oh come on, she was going out with Bob, who we all know was only there cause Alice was in denial. I knew it, she knew it, Diffie-Hellman knew it.) but this whole debacle could have been avoided if they'd used an Asymmetric encryption scheme using a public key exchange.

Alas, this will in my next post. Maybe. Originally this had an ending where half the people killed themselves but I was forced to re-write it, happy now?

Okay now onto Friday... When I worked... At the... Workplace. Oh screw it. Okay, Thursday night Mum calls and talks to me about how my weeks going and then ends on "Don't forget to get up early to go to work." We all know what's going to happen next, so I head to work at 9:15 rather than 7:30, okay day at work, the server had been down since midday Thursday and wasn't up until a guy came out and fixed it. Dodgey configuration, I won't go into it, I've bored you enough with encryption algorythms, it just pisses me that I went in late and couldn't work out how to fix it and be a hero. Ah well, you get that. I did get rid of another unrelated error that had been occurring so that was nice. But, still no feeding my hero complex.

It's here where my week got un-normal. I actually went out, straight from work to Perth. To wonder round the city and hang out with some guys I hadn't hung out with since Mandurah. My expectations of a night out are already 20 years older than me, which is unfortunate. I like a nice dinner, some walking around, some window shopping then home by 9:30ish. Not so, I didn't mind, my spontaneity still continues to surprise me - Well surprise me in the way that it seems not many other people seem to have it. May all those nights along in my bedroom with one hand on my mouse the other on my joystick have gotten to me, and my body is willing to do anything to do different.

What? I like flight sims.. and porn

So, in the end, did have nice dinner with mate and his boyfriend, then we ran into more mate's friends, Mate's boyfriend proceeded to head back to restaurant with Mate's mate... The last thing he remembers is sitting down, but we'll get to that in a moment.

So meanwhile Mate drags me to geek bookshop to talk with different mate. So we hung out there for a couple of hours, just talking... She was selected at birth at a clinic with the best gene's her parents could come up with, and as a result is perfect... Aside from the fact that her bones are very brittle and have over the course of her life bean replaced partially with Titanium, along with various possible cell mutations solved through gene therapy. So we all know where this is going, me trying to find the right words to screw up any chance of future social interactions when fate decided to be nice and give me a distraction

The route shown is pretty simple, 850m, somehow, completely unassisted a completely inebriated Mate's boyfriend managed to traverse it, before amazingly running into us and immediately falling to his feet moaning and vomiting. This was proper drunk. In fact, first proper drunk I'd seen, unable to crawl he sat against a wall, not wanting to move and proceeded to vomit. Pieces of barramundi still very visible amongst the bile. This person, was a classy drinker, though, getting smashed on a delicious 2008 Chardonnay, with the aroma and the chucks of South-Western fish, I hate to admit that this was the third time in my life vomit made me hungry. Now, don't get me wrong, vomit has on many occasions grossed me out and disgusted me, but a couple of occasions, one particular time I had a bug and my macaroni cheese didn't want to stay down, when I was cleaning it up, I was so close to.. Ya know, just a taste, I mean it was an annoying bug cause I was starving but immediately re-saw whatever just went down. But I didn't, I kept my cool as 50% of the passes by were disturbed by the sight (Annoyingly mostly females in such a state that I could tell THEY WOULD SOON BE IN A SIMILAR POSITION. Seriously, hypocritical bitches. Bet their output wouldn't be half as attractive with the 3/4 empty bottle of Jim Bean they were sharing. A nurse came along (As they do when they see something and know they should do something.) Helped us correct our attempt at our recovery position.

Then the female took charge and we discussed our options, my hero complex bubbled up again as we realised I had the only car in Perth and a taxi or train did not seem possible. It would of been perfect had I not got lost.

City blocks are hard to drive around at the best of times, but when a carpark exits onto a different road than you think it does, you end up at Trinity College before confessing, yes I'm lost and require 10 minutes more driving, on top of the already 15 minutes, to get back to the person who needs it. A stern talking to later and the unconscious (But still breathing.) passenger was loaded into my backseat with a completely empty tank. I got into gear and watched her walk away, I'm not sure if it's good or bad that I didn't call out after her that she "could hold me like that anytime I needed to vomit onto the footpath." Alas, I'd met a science experiment but got choked up, but I know where she works.

Dude, she bossed you around and saw that you couldn't do as your told or look after a friend very well.

Thank you voice of reason, tell that to my medial orbitofrontal cortex, or Amygdala or even my Hippocampus I'm sure it'll love to hear that. (Woot, three tiny sections of my brain wanting me to have sex, you'd think with how loud they are they'd have cooler names.)

So anyway, then my Mate crouched on the back floor of my car keeping his friend alive while I drove home we got him inside, and although his complaining was loud when we lifted him above a metre we continued to push him into our shower.

It's here where interesting point 4 (I hope you've been keeping count) happened of the evening. My house mate saw the spectacle and proceeded to help by saying "Good luck with that" and going to bed.

Now, he has since explained that this was his reaction because he doesn't know how to handle situations like that. He was actually terrified and said the previous not with as much sarcasm as I believe he'd had when he said it. He then apologised that if I got into that kind of situation he hoped other would be around, and complimented on the fact that it was handled nicely. Bah, I'm sure if he ever is the only one able to help something primordial will kick in and he'll save me. Or kill me for being the Alpha male. Ego-high-five!

After 15 minutes of being washed by his beloved, he became more human enough to walk around, use the toilet on his own, and then proceed to question which house he was in. Now the last thing he remembers is sitting down waiting for the other guy to arrive and being presented with wine, he doesn't know if he made it, if he paid, how he got to Hay or how he got to my place. After consuming sandwiches, responding to the 38 voicemail messages (I'm not joking. Thirty Eight.) left by concerned and loving parents. and staying another 36 hours, he returned home fine and looking forward to next Friday.

After only 9 hours asleep I was up and having coffee with my parents who then proceeded to take me to Ikea and tell me to meet them at their place at 8.45 the next morning at there place ready to take Ikea purchases to my sisters house. So then I get invited to go out for dinner. And then invited out clubbing.

You'll notice that this is the first post up in a couple of weeks. Not much happens in my life. When I get invites that sound crazy I take them, so that when I look back over my life in 10 years when the infected are breaking down my last barricade, I can at least tell myself, I occasionally lived.

So went out for tea and watched house mate have a fudge sundae. For tea. And that's it. I know he's not annorexic in the way that he doesn't eat a lot to be thin, he just doesn't eat a lot. It's just.. Seriously? No substantial meal? I cleaned up a fish and chips (Seriously that nice smell was with me 24 hours later.) and picked up my cousin and some friends (including her lesbian friend that I believe I've spoken of before.) and headed out. My cousin was already extremely happy by the fact that she was pleased to see me for the first time in years. So we went to The Court and I watched my cousin and one of the people I hadn't met before drink. Meanwhile the sober amused each other with dancing styles (I now know how fun pole dancing is. Seriously it's a challenge and an ability to vent crazy and apparently a fitness option. To those females who do pole dancing to get fit, I know it's been an option for a while, but admit that you are venting sexual frustrations and I believe we can move along as a society.). Midnight came quickly and as we'd acquired another passenger there was now six that needed to be taken home in my car that can only fit five at best. So for the second time that weekend I performed a traffic violation and one of them (Almost too eagerly) climbed into the boot. And she was one of the perfectly sober ones. She decided to amuse herself by being my guide and shouting GPS directions whilst tolerating bumps and a couple of repeated spins round some roundabouts. Although she got out fine and seemed all there I still apologise for the unintentional beating I gave her.

My cousin decided to kick me one more time emotionally before venturing into her house to sleep. "If she wasn't gay, you'd make a cute couple." A relationship she had befriended me over, and avoided me at all costs because of, she saw could go to the next level. She could finally see why we kept meeting and chatting behind her back, we're totally different, yet can talk. The person in question decided to retort this indefinitly "If Hitler wasn't a bastard, he would of made a wonderful dictator." I shared her opinion, the one thing in my life I'm currently looking forward to the most can't be spoiled yet. And now she's moving for ten weeks away, so I can't party hard with her any more, no more photo bombing competitions.

Dude, what the hell...?

What?

You're missing her, don't do anything stupid to try and get her attention.

I won't, and plus, she's been in my boot, once a girl's been in your boot, there's really no further you can go with a girl, anything now is just back tracking.

Fair enough, I just think you should get obsessed about someone else so you don't screw up a good friend.

Noted. And plus we didn't meet good enough.

Meet good enough? Is that proper English?

I meant, the way we met wasn't good enough

So let me get this straight, you don't want to be in a relationship with a person you met in a boring way?

Yeah.

You met on Facebook, bitching at her cousin, on your cousins' wall.. That's up there with weird.

Yeah, but not crazy enough, first question your asked when you get into a relationship, and I would like it if the story I get to tell people is "Lachlan appropriate"

"Lachlan appropriate"?

Head smacked in with a baseball bat by best mate. Lachlan appropriate. Falling off a road attempting to do a corner in third. Lachlan Appropriate. Buying an Xbox 360 to aid in hitting on a girl. Lachlan Appropriate. Pole dancing in a gay nightclub. Lachlan appropriate.

So, you mean moronic.

Kind of. Just a little bit crazy, not necessarily unique. Hitting on the only female on a message borad, Getting friended randomly on Facebook after hearing my name once, buying the same type of cheese, rescuing her from the top of a building site being patrolled by a gorilla who keeps ditching barrels at me.

Hmmmm... And here's me thinking the most important thing in a relationship is that you love each other

Who wouldn't love a girl stuck at the top of a construction site being patrolled by a gorilla who keeps ditching barrels.

Good point.

Now can I finish this post?

Okay

Good. (Not long left now.) So on Sunday despite getting to sleep at an unreasonable hour, I managed to get myself to my parents place only five minutes late, to find that they weren't ready to leave yet. Saw sisters new place and envious because I'm not sure where I'll be at the end of the year and I'm pretty sure it won't be that nice. Although it wouldn't of worked out cause theres no aerial connector in the bed room and no cat 6 cabling pre-installed, and its a lot metal so it would absorb signal. Although there is a phone connector in the bed room, so I could use that as the modem and wireless in there, but then I wouldn't get it in the main room or on the deck. And I'd have to get out of bed to answer the phone, but I could get a splitter. Nope. Without network coverage on the deck the outside is wasted. Ah well, scrap that and build a new place.

So there it is, one of the few weeks that was, drunk people, car driving, pole dancing, no desperately hitting on anyone and no time to do my 339 assignment. But for that week at least I have an excuse. I was enjoying myself, and why would I want to ruin that week with doing assignment work.

So it's now 10:00PM on Monday the 30th August 2010. I have no plans and that means 339 will get done and I should get to work on time tomorrow. It means I've run out of things to say and have no graffiti of the week, now that I do regret not obtaining from nightclub toilet - Ah well, something to look forward for next time. When will next time be? I have no idea what you'll be reading all I can say is I look forward to you company, goodnight God bless, Keep Calm and Carry On. So until I get banned from the network, Good Bye.

Why So Cirrus?

2010-08-09T20:21:00.001+08:00

My blog does not represent the views of Murdoch or any of its affiliates. All posts are NOT to be taken seriously and are written only for entertainment purposes.

"Things have happened, just not to you."

For eight weeks, I've over thought how I should live every single moment, for possible my last break before entering the real world. In the end, I didn't re-complete any games, I didn't bulk up, I didn't get drunk. I just, like most breaks, sat. Watched DVD's, a few movies, worked. It was at the beginning of my final week of the break with a large pay than usual that made me do something a bit impulsive. I jumped on a hotel website browsed around for a few hours, and randomly booked a hotel based on the fact that it was an hour drive away and had views of water.

As I drove away from work on Thursday down to the Mandurah marina, my mind wondered over the possibilities of actually going out for once.

I was greeted in the hotel with a brilliant view, over priced internet on a short cat 5e cable and the best movies on demand system that I have had the chance to encounter. Granted I have only experienced three, but the fact is, interactive channel with inbuilt media player that also interacted with the accounts system? Good stuff. in fact, type of stuff I wanna work on at some point. Weird ubiquitous content delivery system.

But even though I went out to dinner and hang out with mates from high school, nothing of interest happened. No meeting new people, no using the clincher 'Here's my hotel room swipe card, I'll see you in 15.' No great life changing experience, just a few photos of water, one of a sheepskin store, and a new phone charger after I forgot to pack mine and couldn't find a USB cable for a Samsung S20 connector. (Mandurah forum, excellent shopping centre though... 4 phone places, a Jesters, a Wendy's, no Samsung S20 USB cable, but still, very decent selection of shops.)

So I headed back from Mandurah

Wait, weren't there riots that weekend.

Yes, there was.

Well that's INTERESTING ISN'T IT?

Not when you miss them.

HOW DO YOU MISS A RIOT, IN MANDURAH?

Dunno, but I managed it, didn't know they'd happened until watching the news.

I have no idea what I do wrong, but I manage to miss everything that could actually be interesting when I go out. Granted, I've always been the type of person with my head in the clouds, I do try to actively engage with other people, but most of the time I end up just lost in my own thoughts, doing my own thing with my own agenda, just hoping stuff will fall into my lap.

Like the fact that I am yet to get a job properly. I have got all my jobs due to subtle hints between bosses and family members. I'm kinda hoping I get my next job like that, but I'm willing to concede if the job is awesome.

So head in the clouds, amazed that I'm in my (hopefully (If I keep saying to myself there's a possibility of me still failing maybe that'll motivate me to succeed. It's worked the last five (WOW, has it only been five?!) semesters.).) final semester, I'm left with a depression that nothing in my life seems to happen, and between 2008 and the end of the year I may only have an additional piece of paper. Sad face with apostrophe.

But... Then I think of what could of happened. A friend of mine has almost been deported. Another friend has been put into a job they don't really like. Another has been forced to move to Sydney. Another has had multiple family deaths in six months. Another has been kicked out of home. another has had a bad break up with whom they thought was going to be their partner for life. Another has had to take out a big loan and ruined his credit rating due to a technicality. Another had to move house in the space of a couple of days. Another has had a dog died. (Okay not very dramatic, but it's still sad and happened today.)

Nothing... Is awesome. Nothing happened means nothing bad happened.

What about those girls, aren't you sad that none of them worked out?

A bit, but I was told by one of the aforementioned friends that it's AMAZING that I keep running into these, it's pretty statistically unlikely to meet a couple of people that awesome in such a short amount of time. AND SOMEHOW I'm able to talk to them, and humiliate myself for the sake of talking to them meaning that when someone does come along it's unlikely that I'm going to miss that opportunity to at least stuff myself up with something I said, rather than not saying anything.

So Lachlan, does this mean, you are happy?

Sort of, but now I feel bad for using other people's misfortune to make life seem good.

Oh for FUCKS SAKE JUST BE HAPPY OKAY?!

Yeah, I can manage that I guess. Happy face. Very Happy Face.

Grafitti of the week:

It's finally returned!

"I don't remember eating multigrain bread..."

"I wonder if brothels have tight arse Tuesday? And if they do, is it cheaper or more expensive?" - Actually Jamie technically posted this on msn, not on a wall

"Lecturer's are c***s"

Classy, Lachlan, classy.

There is a reason I bring up that last one, the second are was written in afterwards. Meaning for a short period of time, this said "Lecture's are cu

well, you get what I mean, now this particular c word was written FIVE TIMES on this door.

I wouldn't be upset BUT THIS WAS A LAW toilet. Lawyers are suppose to know classy adjectives and eventually have extremely high paying jobs wasting time reading books and writing VERY long essays requiring lots of revisions. And one of them CAN'T SPELL LECTURER'S and some of them over use a particular swear word. I'm very concerned.

Speaking of being concerned about lawyers, why do they get all the classy art? Now I'm an IT guy so I'm not suppose to know about art and I don't, but lawyers are suppose to have time for art, yet you go into the law level, or indeed any firm, and they appear to have so much money that it's used on art that none of them understand.

Now recently a graffiti artist has attacked a part of the campus with some awesome art... And guess where it is... In the law section. Or at least... ECLIT (If I keep using it, it's bound to catch on.) Court yard. Now being someone who blogs about graffiti, especially classy graffiti, I was told about this a couple of months ago and have been looking forward to talking about it... Except I can't find it.

Granted some of the best graffiti art is hidden in back ally's an on walls, for only randoms to appreciate, and that is nice, but.. This is art that was, probably, paid for. And if I can't enjoy the colour amongst the grey.. That makes me sad face. I just look at the photo published in the Murdoch Explore magazine, and the only location hints I get that it's somewhere near a grey wall and the artist is standing in front of it and I think he may of moved.

Now this is something I haven't talked about, the "Explore" magazine, which is like this blog only it makes people believe that people at Murdoch are doing good things. The type of thing which stated that the "Car free day at Murdoch" occurred, but did not state the outcome of it. (I couldn't find a park on a day I was suppose to be guilty for taking my car.)

I realise that occasionally I don't speak very nicely about Murdoch uni sometimes but I do love and and will HUGELY regret leaving this year, but I realise due to a technicality on the the MyInfo website I may have to stay another semester that I was not planning to, and although I don't have any plans for next year, I was hoping I could be a directionless adult rather than a student. I do love my exception from bank fees, but if the select-case statements on MyInfo are wrongly coded then it is TOTALLY not user error.

So yes, I guess the one thing that happened is I've been making a big deal out of something that I should just go see the student services centre about and clear my mind. I'll do that on Wednesday.

You see what happens when I don't have someone to stalk? I get all moody and worry about silly things like the fact that I'm not sure I'm going to be committed enough to even pass the units that I'm trying to complete. Or that the liberal government will get in AND RUIN MY FTTP. No, don't laugh, this is more serious than you realise. Did you know there are businesses in Perth that can only get 64 Kbps lines? Did you know that's ruining the chance of having any web presence?

You may think it's this minor policy but it's pretty much the thing keeping me in the country.

Oh bugger now they're definitely going to get in.

Wait, wasn't I talking about toilet door defamation? So let's end on a high note:

"NO FAT CHICKS -> This is a guys toilet"

Until I get banned from the network... Good bye. Still Happy face.