Yeah, that´s right. I´m using a mac. But, I´m not complaining in the slightest, because Dagny allowing me to borrow her computer for a bit to write some folks at home is cool enough, and I´m starting to find mac´s quite desirable, namely because I don´t want to touch Vista with a four meter pole. So, anyways, allow me to shed some light on my current computer situation first; its not looking good. I brought the beast to the computer store today, and although he only gave it a look over, from what I told him he said that It´s not looking good. That´s bad news bears. I´m really hoping that he´ll at least be able to get my memories in photographic form off of that computer, or else the last month and a half would´ve been a waste (yeah, right). So I´ll have more to report tomorrow on the computer front, and moving on to the last amazing two days.
Tuesday - always a great day, of course, because I don´t have any classes to worry about. So I started myself off with a light breakfast of three pieces of toast, namely because I didn´t have anything stocked up to supply myself with, and went off to the pool. They had yet another swim meet at the Adelaide Aquatic Centre (which will from this point on ALWAYS be referred to as the AAC because of its close resemblance of the ACC) and it really made me ponder whether the kids in Australia do anything else but swim. Last week they also had a meet here, and I may have even recognized a few of the girls, haha, kidding! Moving on, I had a terrible time trying to get going in the half-50m pool (they move the boom to the middle like they would at Dal) because they obviously open the shallow end to the public, and I have a real hard time getting a rhythm in the shallow water only, not the first time I´ve noticed this dilemma. But, lucky me for a choice of a great swimming centre, they also have a 25m dive pool, which is plenty deep. It was night and day when I jumped in there, and I was flying but my workout was mostly shot already, so instead of trying to swim for 40m straight, as the workout called for today but I´d already been in the pool trying to find a rhythm and "warming up" for an hour, I decided to give a little test for myself and a number to improve upon. That number is 15m56s, an incredibly slow 750m. With a little practice and some decent coaching, I could almost shave that time in half I reckon. But its good to have something to beat now.
After the pool I went home, and don´t really recall much of what I did in the day, but I know I eventually went on the worst ride of my time in Australia. Namely because I didn´t route out where I was going, and so I got absolutely smacked by this huge hill and then on a little search around for a better time my water bottle holder, newly installed that day, broke and I lost my $4.40 bottle of Powerade which was going to be desperately needed on that day. So after that I went to a bike shop, got that fixed and headed out for another twenty minutes and finished off the ride having no idea where I´d been, how far I´d been, or if I was tired or not. Mostly, I was though so that was good enough for me for today.
After that I went home, had some pasta supper, and got to talking to Dagny about a whole lot of everything, but namely we were discussing how sometimes being told what to do was more simple than just trying to figure out what to do. This namely comes down to the problems facing all recently graduated men and women unless they were in a professional or job specific program; what am I going to do the rest of my life? Do I take my hobbies and turn them into a profession, or do I make the things I do who I am instead of my job title? Dagny had picked up somewhere along the way two terms and explained them to me, and it was nice to finally put a name to what I´ve been thinking about for so long; the world´s cultural and, to me, unfortunate shift from industrial capitalism to network capitalism. These terms are coined in social science and really explain what I´ve always fretted over, in today´s society you´re constantly having to evaluating, reinventing and identifying yourself by so many number of factors. I mean, its great to have a society that really embraces individualism and to have the opportunity to do whatever you want as long as you´re willing to work for it, but decisions were easier, in my impression looking from the outside, when you were sure that you would take over the family business as was expected of you, and when there weren´t thousands of consumer choices but one reliable one. Sometimes I associate so much with Bill Bryson´s autobiography of growing up in Des Moines, Iowa, titled Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. And reading Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn recently as well, things just seemed better in the the old times. Obviously, this doesn´t apply to women´s rights and the disgusting amounts of racism displayed amongst these times, but the sense of community and core values were certainly better to me.
So Tuesday was pretty great, and pretty full. Wednesday was equally just as good - started off the morning early with my last three pieces of toast, and then went to my favourite class taught by a good teacher, Alan Cooper teaching Evolution and Paleobiology. We focused today on ancient DNA and the amazing discoveries and proofs it brings, and also how hard it is to acquire and use. Really interesting stuff. After that, I went home and did something I´m sort of ashamed of, as I´m always the one saying that guys that do this are morons. I went out just to a park, really a patch of grass in between two busy streets in Norwood, and spread out a Quantas blanket (if you haven´t heard, there´s a lot of students sponsored by Quantas down here...) and started reading in the park. Doesn´t sound that bad? You haven´t heard the whole of it yet; I did this on a gorgeous sunny day, with my shirt off. Now I imagine a lot of people are saying, so what, but I´m just not that guy, or I thought I wasn´t. Shirts go off at the beach, or playing ultimate frisbee, or when coaches make you go shirts and skins, but not when you´re lying in a park reading a book. But, in Australia, I´m a tourist, so really I can get away doing whatever I´d like, right? Well, this was where I started a new book and already only 40 odd pages in, its incredible. Its exactly what I´ve been wanting to read lately and everything that´s good and right with literature. Cormac McCarthy´s The Road. Recommended by two really good friends who most of the time read really good stuff, Nash Bauerlein and Frank(ford) McCabe-Barauskas, the road is literary artistry at its best so far, and is almost written in free-verse which makes it even more relatable and easier to get into. And for the first bit, its written surrounded with vagaries that make it even more captivating so as to just understand how the characters got into this situation in the first place. I predict it´ll be done very quickly, as getting through Huck Finn was harder than would´ve wished.
After my reading with my shirt off for all too long (even the ants didn´t agree, for some inexplicable reason three of them just randomly bit me while I just left them to crawl on me) I went back home, grabbed a bit of grub and went off for a run, at 15h00 and in near 35 degree weather. More than a couple people thought I was crazy and told me it was actually dangerous, but I didn´t listen, of course, and inevitably set my fastest pace time in Australia and 4m24s/km averaged over 9km. This was a GREAT surprise when I put it into the training database tonight. I mean, I was exhausted after twenty minutes and was planning and did run for fourty, and so my pace was even slowed for the third quarter, but it was just that much closer to my goal to at least break the 4m/km pace time (specifically, over ten kms). I think I´ve just been pushing and pushing too much lately and need to just find the joy in running again, like I did today. After that workout I grabbed some dinner and then got my butt handed to me in squash by three separate people, and then moved on to a delicious supper that I didn´t have to do much to prepare, always the best situation. But the owner of this all too user-friendly mac needs it for school work (what´s that again?) so I´ll leave with two last thoughts:
-The tv show Lost sucks. I just tried to watch it for the first time, made it through approximately seven minutes and was so fed up that I couldn´t continue any longer.
-Irish breakfast tea is excellent, especially after a good supper and accompanied with some sort of biscuit/toast/fruit/dessert.
Inspire
12 years ago
