Miriam Parkinson

I’m realising that its hard to get back into blogging when you stop for a while. I’ve made several starts over the past couple of weeks but haven’t actually finished a blog post. I keep on feeling like I have nothing to say.

Anyway things have been fairly busy in this part of the world recently. I’m a week off halfway through my semester at uni and the workload is huge. I’m back into a proper programming subject again which I’m glad for. I almost would have liked to do a pure programming course but then all the IT subjects have their low points, for instance databases 101 (or its equivalent) which has a 60% fail rate simply because its boring as bat shit.

I seem to get a huge sense of satisfaction from programming. There’s something about writing a whole lot of instructions, pressing play and having the computer do what you want it to which is really satisfying particularly if you had to think really hard and learn new stuff in order to do it.

I’m also enjoying Machine Dynamics 2 because I had my first test the other day and actually fully understood the material. Maths is fun when you get it and like pulling teeth when you don’t.

Control and Automation is my least favorite subject. Its certainly the hardest but I’m starting to figure out what’s happening there too. The main problem is lecturer headaches. She’s lovely as a person but simply pisses me off with her teaching style!

Finally I have Machine Design which is a whole lot of fun. Its one of those subjects where you take all that stuff you’ve been learning for the past two years and actually apply it.

So that’s the playing field at the moment. I’m hoping for a straight run of distinctions or higher which would make it my best semester so far but I may as well shoot for the stars

I’m pleasantly surprised by my bald look. I think it kinda suits me

Colin loves it, Nay (my sister) thinks its ‘not too bad’ and Emma and David (Colin’s kids) think its hilarious.

All in all I’ve raised $550. I’m hoping to raise some more over the next week so we’ll see how things go. If you would like to sponsor me please click here.

On Saturday I am shaving my head to raise money for the Leukemia Foundation. The Leukemia Foundation supports patients with leukemias, lymphomas, myeloma and other blood disorders.

If you would like to sponsor me you can do so by credit card by clicking here. Donations over $2 are tax deductible and it’s a really good cause so dig deep!

I will of course be posting up pictures, videos etc for everyones amusement.

On Friday night I went to Swinburne’s ‘Welcome Back Party’. I headed home alone fairly early (11pm) by train. During my train journey I noticed that a 40ish man in a suit was staring at me quite a lot which creeped me out no end. I was even more creeped out when I got off the train at my station and he followed me off.

At this stage I was fairly scared but still thought that it was probably my imagination and coincidence. To be on the safe side however I called Colin and spoke loudly about being at the station and being home in 5 min, slowing down as I did so to force him ahead of me. He headed into the tunnel off the platform and turned left, so I turned right to the opposite side of the tracks. As I walked home down the road parallel to the train line I noticed someone standing on the other side of the tracks looking across at me through the fence. It was the same guy. So not my imagination after all.

Fortunately I was safe however I have no doubt that I wouldn’t have had a chance of fighting him off had he surprised me from behind.

So the moral to the story is be observant, be aware of your environment, and if you think that somethings not right trust your instinct.

Until recently the most important spare time burner in my life was a good blog reading binge. Until recently I checked The Podcast Network every day. Until last weekend I blogged on a fairly regular basis…

All this has changed as a result of… Wii Madness!! (dum, dum duuuuummmm!)

You see, three weeks ago I turned twenty… wait no, that wasn’t it… I won a Wii. Last week I went and picked it up. Since then… well put it this way – last night Colin and I forgot to have dinner because we were so busy playing Wii Sports.

To top this off I also started uni again.

So sorry for my absence, I will endeavor to return to my semi productive ways and blog about… stuff, on a far more regular basis.