My grandma went to hospital

There was something wrong with her white blood cell count. We went to see her but I was nervous this was the first time in a long time that she has been in there for something serious. By the time that we got there she had been feeling better, mum had said that she is looking better. I was relieved but again it stuck me, she is slowly slipping away. Each month I notice that she is getting a little bit older that she seems to forget things and that her cognition is off.

This has again sparked me into the whole family tree/history thing, my desperate need to know and record my past. For what purpose and for what end I’m yet to figure out but I do know that the more that I find out the more I am interested in.

I watched “Into the Wild”

It’s an interesting movie with a suggestive sub-text. We live in a materialistic world filled with people who are desperate to impress other people. I liked the story and it seems rather romantic…from the outside, the reality is a different story. It got me thinking about what I’m doing now and how much it really matters.

I wanted to find out the books that Chris (from the movie) read for him to reach this state of mind, this is what I’ve found so far.

• ‘Tanaina Plantlore’ by Priscilla Russel Kari
• ‘Education of a Wandering Man’ by Louis L’Amour
• Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
• War and Peace (Lev Tolstoy)
• Death of Ivan Ilych (Lev Tolstoj)
• Call of the Wild (Jack London)
• White Fang (Jack London)
• Moon-Face (Jack London)
• Brown Wolf (Jack London)
• To Build a Fire (Jack London)
• Doctor Zhivago (Boris Pasternak)
• Terminal Man (Michael Crichton)
• O Jersualem! (Larry Collins & Dominique Lapierre)
• Walden (Henry David Thoreau)

The aim would be to read it and see if I can see (figuratively) the same things that he did.

I’ve thought again about the idea of a journal

This has all let me to the mystical journal that I keep picking up and putting down. Half of it is this blog the other half is written for myself.

I think that I’ll give it another go in 2011.

She said yes!

Everyone is celebrating.

What do I do now…

Doing this means that I miss out on rare opportunties like today. Walking out of the office and just missed a bit of a shower or drizzle but looking up towards to the Paris end of Collins Street I saw one really strong rainbow, there was another but the colour was weaker.

It wasn’t just the rainbow that was stunning, the light was this light sepia colour everywhere, the air had this great wet fresh smell about, the clouds around the rainbow that this look like someone had dragged a rake across the snow.

I wish that I had my camera to capture that moment and the sight, I couldn’t describe it well enough which is why I take photos and not write poetry.
Hopefully I’ll get that chance again.

The more people that I tell the more that they caution me that it’s one of the big steps and to look out she will be asking for a ring next (I’ve already encountered that one)

My hesitation isn’t complex, it’s quite simple – I didn’t want to be held accountable.
I’m great when I need to save for a goal I’ve got no problems putting money away when I need to.
When I do have money I enjoy spending it, on nights out, on my new crumpler bag or looking forward to new camera lens.

I never saw the problem in spending money if I had saved for it, I had made the conscious decision to buy something  and months ago started saving and months later still want it. But now I am no longer justified in buying said item – the logic doesn’t make sense to me. The rational does, “well now that you have saved the money you might as well not spend it and save it for something more useful’ I was astonished to say the least.

This is why I have still kept my original account and will continue to be paid into that for as long as I can, because I think that why I have saved I have the right to spend.

Even the girlfriend is giving me the look of “Well when is it going to be?”
“I don’t know, I don’t feel that I’m ready” I say
She stares back “Excuse me, not ready we have been together for 5 years, what do you mean not ready”
Me “oops”

What do I do, when every family member, co-worker and friend are asking when we are going to get married. Now all that I have in my arsnel of answers is – well not yet but soon.

It’s not that I’m scared, well I am, I know that she will say yes, that’s not the problem it is that I feel that I haven’t finished everything that I wanted to do before I settle down. Not only that but my frame of mind isn’t into it, I see it as the end of all that I hold scared and dear to my heart – freedom. The freedom of coming home after a big night of drinking and not having to answer to anyone about what you did, how you got home, how much you drank. Not having to account for any of the gadgets or things that you have bought, just because you wanted them and what to have a bit of fun. Not have to give up playing games because now you have to spend time with someone.

It isn’t that I don’t love her, I do, I most certainly do. As with most things about myself I seem to have to wait this out, it simply might be a case of maturity that I have to reach and finally realise what I want to do.

In the mean time I think that I will join this Facebook group: My Friends Are Getting Married. I’m Just Getting Drunk.

I have always held a long fascination with Japan, the people, culture and history and after coming from India it was a pleasure to be somewhere so quiet, polite and ordered. Everything was clean, everything had a purpose and almost everything had a certain beauty about it that demanded attention.

The generosity and maticilous nature of the people will always remain in my memories and I’m glad that I have made my dream trip (to Japan) and was not disappointed by it.

I had an amazing time traveling overseas and wished that it wouldn’t end, but sadly commitments (don’t we all have them) drew me back home.

Too much alcohol way too much, I have vague recollections of what I said, who was there, and ultimately what I had done – throwing up is never something that I count as one of my proud moments.

I woke up and wasted most of the day in pain and hoping that I would be able to keep food down, I was able to which was lucky because I had an important dinner that evening.

It hit me through the course of the day that this isn’t what I wanted to do anymore, I don’t think that getting drunk really reflects who I really want to be or help me achieve the goals that I want. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy drinking (alcohol) but at this moment I decided that getting paralytic past the point of embarrassment and incoherence was not something that I wanted to do.

I am feeling a sense of achievement recently and motivation, I can’t tell if outside pressure or if internal maturity is forcing me to have results from my activities and interests. The girlfriend is pushing the relationship at a fast pace due to pressure on her part and being the individual that I am I am going along with it.

I look at myself and my surroundings and it’s not that I’m not happy with what I see but I’m certainly not pleased with it – things can certainly be better. There are so many forgotten goals and milestones that I wanted to achieve years ago, buying ASX shares is one of them.

I have started to improve certain things like wasting less time and exercising but some habits are hard to break. I’m getting better though and I will be reporting my progress here.

The first stop is to improve my productivity from what I have noticed there is a method called Getting Things Done (The Australian Version) Like many have said I think that this looks rather fun and anything to improve my efficiency would be great. I have been a listener of The Podcast Network for a while and have found The Productivity Podcast

Also a plug to Cameron Reilly and his most excellent gday world podcast

Creativity is something that I have been thinking about a bit lately, mainly because I coming into a few hobbies that by my definition involve creativity. I’ll describe in them two broad categories online media (blogging, podcasting etc…) and photography. Both require interpretation of a scene or situations that each bring the authors unique slant on the world, essentially taking something ordinary and making it extraordinary. From my limited and recent experience it’s something that cannot be taught, yes it can be extended and expanded through education but that initial vision must be there.

I am looking for balance to my technical side, I find writing an good outlet a way to express myself and also improve my communication and writing skills. I find photography interesting because it gives me the ability to take a snapshot that I can look back on, but for me it also offers that unique opportunity to play with a gadget as well. I have found increasing interest in both things this year while I haven’t had the time to do either with any vigor (mainly due to uni) I am finding that I am holding myself back due to self doubt.
I don’t consider myself a creative person I think that I operate better with guidelines and rules I always have I have excelled and taking a proven method and doing it well sometimes changing it so that it be better but generally I don’t rock the boat.

It is partly the reason that I have been reluctant to take up both seriously because I’m afraid that I will fail at them, but then at that very sweet moment of wondering if I should give it all up I found this on my desk

It is not because it is difficult that we don’t try it’s because we don’t try that things are difficult
Taken from:

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.

Seneca
Roman dramatist, philosopher, & politician (5 BC – 65 AD)

It brings me to wonder if going for a graduate position is the best option, but I suppose that it’s the point of it – the option is there. I knew from the beginning that I wasn’t too much of a chance but I thought that the opportunity is there and there is not reason to be half assed about it, so I haven’t been. I would probably be averaging 4 – 6 hours per application.

But saying that I’m no chance and not getting any acceptance emails/sms is a different story out of the 9 that I did last week I got 1…today.

I guess that reality hits harder that it sounds.

More updates later.

This time last year I was overseas and traveling around Europe which was good, I had waited sometime to do it and saved for a year working two jobs and going to uni it was a hard juggle. I came back on a high feeling that the year had a great start to it, I had started the year off with achieving something and doing something great (in my mind) I had learned more and felt that I had grown a little bit.

Uni started and I did that but I can’t really remember something that was fantastic about the first semester that I had done, I had passed all my subjects which was bit of a surprise for me and the second semester was the same, if anything the year ended with me getting nothing that I wanted to do and realising that I didn’t know myself as well as I thought that I did.

The new year has come around and I’m going to be another year older this year and looking internally have realised that certain major parts of life I don’t necessarily want anymore.

It was also partly the reason why I dropped the ball with this blog as well, I felt that there was nothing anymore to report on.

I don’t feel like I have the friends that I had before, my personal relationships (from my viewpoint) are not as rock solid as before, my financial situation isn’t dire but not where I want it, after starting the year good on my fitness and weight loss it had gone downhill by the end of the year I am heavier at the start of this year when compared to last. The only up side that I can see is that I have one semester of Uni left until I am finished but it isn’t going to be easy being the last one – another challenge.

The chips are down, I’m a little bit depressed and feel like I am in a rut – so what do I do now.

I do what I have always done, I get back up and dust myself off and keep going and hope that my luck and motivation will hold out long enough so that I can finally get what I want. I would like to say that this is the year and sugar coat it with motivation such as the fact that I’m getting older and there isn’t much time left and what ever I want to happen I need to do it now otherwise it just might be too late.

I will try and not only that I will use this blog as an electronic testament to what I want to achieve and what I have. There is something that I have also always done that has kept me in good stead which has dropped off in the last six months – the brighter side of life I have always seen the silver lining and I will try to do that again.

So with drink in hand, here is to the future…cheers.

This is the first time that he has tried to give me ‘life advice’ the other times had always been school and friends stuff which is harmless but then we got to the sex talk….uncomfortable!

Everything he said just was really weird and disjointed I was more embarrassed for him rather than me, it’s actually quite funny now that I think of it how he decided to deliver his speech and mum for some reason thought that it was his job to do it rather than hers or both. From here it moved to relationship advice, marriage advice with the odd technical stuff thrown in for good measure to make sure I am enough of a man…roar!!

Today’s talk was about buying houses with the g/f, the other stuff was fine because I could take it at face value and write it off as a father with years of experience trying to pass on knowledge which is cool by me and I appreciate it, most of the time it is useful, most of the time.

But this topic hit a little too close to home, I have been thinking about this for a little while and the subject of moving out has been a little sore at the moment because of our differences (the g/f and I) with the place that we want to go to. She and I couldn’t be more polar opposites rent/buy and city/suburbs. So far I have been putting it off until later, but it keeps popping up. It comes down to our personalities, most of the things that I enjoy and want to do happen to be in the city which includes a lot of the festivals, clubs and pubs, at this age I just think that it would be more exciting if I was to live somewhere closer to the action so I would have less of a chance of missing out on things. Her on the other hand (from my point of view) seems to already have the grandma cardigan on and enjoys those nights at home and thus would prefer the leafier surrounds of suburban life, this further extends to the question of rent/buy. Renting for me at this stage would mean that I would have more disposable income be it for a short while and more flexibility with what I wanted to do with my money and where I wanted to go. But buying for me would prove to much of a commitment and frankly would feel like there would be nothing left for me to experience. Could you imagine trying to pay a mortgage on a graduate salary…

‘hey life….cya later’

Of course my reasons are opposites for her, she isn’t into the city life and setting down is what she wants, so I have a hard difficult road ahead. I am rather good at compromises so I am hoping that I can work something out, but at this stage like I do with most things I will put it towards the back of my mind and worries until I really have to deal with it.

The advice was good and when compared to my plan seemed like a much better idea, it seems that my parents aren’t as disconnected from my world or generation as I thought and they will definitely become more useful as I get older. Besides I might need somewhere to go and live in a near future.

The spring racing carnival is everywhere at this time of the year and it’s annoying because I have always wanted to go but for the past 5 years exams have been on at the same time of the year. But if everything goes well this will be the last year that it can be shoved in my face and I can do nothing about it.

Summer, how we love summer and being at Uni doesn’t make a difference everything is so much better. Having to sit inside at a desk/computer and work instead of going outside just isn’t fair. This isn’t so much of a problem because with proper planning most of this can be avoided.

The finish line for this year is so close I can almost see it.
One more semester to go and I am finally done.

Anyway I was in Angus & Robertson today and just strolling through as you normally do when I stopped at the business section to see what new releases where about, when I saw a book by Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki called Why We Want You to be Rich I gave a little laugh ( at the absurdity of it), and it was probably a little too loud because the lady who was standing next to me also noticed and commented on it.

We ended up having quite an interesting conversation about business and books and I later found out that she is in the business of helping people with theirs, I felt rather embarrassed recommending books to her when she was already well read on the subject.

I had always wanted to start a business but being a student and not having heaps of money doesn’t really help the situation. Most of the ideas haven’t been anything useful in the end. I don’t think that I would survive well running and IT company, running a take away pizza or buying into a franchise has crossed my mind. I have always been interested in investing, mainly the stock market but again needing a reserve of funds has stopped that going too far.

I left her because I had things to buy and places to be but it did get me thinking on a forgotten subject again which is good, and she had given me some tips on a few books that I could look into which I might pick up when I have some spare time. I have been meaning to look into buying some shares, I’m not going to go for the T3 offer but something else like Optus or something in the Health Care sector I think, but I would probably be after something that was safe rather than risky I know that being the age that I am I could go for something with more risk but I just don’t think that I have the money for it. Maybe when I get older.

So if you are here reading this…got any tips – books, stocks or otherwise?

I was in the city today taking photos, not for any great reason but I thought while I was there I might take a few for the photo-a-day experiment that I am trying to do, I was around the AXA building and there is a statue of John Batman which looked kinda interesting as I was walking past (at 7:30 am which is another story) and decided that it was a good chance to take a photo.

I pulled the camera (I carry it with me everywhere) out and looked around to see if anyone was watching or if there were a suitable number of cars going past so that no one would notice.

Why should I fear? I had done the same thing numerous times overseas and there is no reason to suspect that I wouldn’t look like a tourist, I don’t think that it is the fact that someone would stop me and ask me what I was doing, but more along the lines of they would simply think that I was doing something dodgy would be enough for me to think twice.

I took the photos anyway, a bit rushed, but taken and not the best either but as soon as I put the camera away low and behold a pair of Asian tourists walked past, camera and map in tow, so there really is no doubt to think that there wouldn’t be tourist in our great city let alone that time of the morning.

So instead of walking around the city and taking photos like I wanted to do, I am sitting at the Star Bucks opposite the AXA building typing out a post watching the city slowly come alive and thinking about how much harder it will be to get home.

But almost a year has past since I have come back and I don’t really have much to show for it (in terms of photos) I have have the odd batch here and there but nothing consistent. I have started a photoblog at least a couple of times but still can’t keep it going for very long.

I would like to think that the problem is that my weekly schedule doesn’t really allow me to see enough of the world to photograph. Money to Friday is Uni and work, which is mainly indoors and doesn’t provide much variety in terms of differing scenery. The weekends…well nothing happens on the weekends (which is another gripe of mine that I won’t go into)

I do try to keep my eyes on the web about how to become better at taking photos, ideas about what to take or even reviews on that Canon 350D that I desperately (but can’t justify) want – because I stupidly think that it will make me better or inspire me more. But then recently I stumbled across an interesting post.

Project 365

I wasn’t too sure about starting something like this, I mean I haven’t been very successful in the past with taking photos just randomly, but now that I have to will I be able to find something. But hey, what would it hurt…if I don’t do it or doesn’t work out nothing lost. If I do it and I do get something out of it…all the better.

I started a few days ago and although I haven’t been able to take a photo everyday, I have tried to capture things that I find interesting that I see everyday. Here are three:

I have also been thinking about doing the ‘take a photo of yourself everyday’ thing as well. It would be interesting to see how much I change through the course of the summer and the coming year. That is if I can keep it up.

There has been one interesting side effect to the photo-a-day thing, I have started to notice the world a little more. I am starting to see things from a different perspective, I know it’s early days and I’m probably jumping the gun a bit, but I think that this project might make me more appreciative of the world around me that I see everyday.

The lights go green I decided “screw it” and punch the accelerator, I wait until the engine revs hard and change gear before I know it I’ve hit 70Km/h and I’m in 3rd so I keep going till I hit about 90km/h. The whole while there is this taxi oh my left hand side just sitting in my blind spot to just behind me, I’m thinking what the hell is he doing just sitting there he is either going to pass or drop off, but no. So I slow down and speed up and the distance remains the same.

So I forget about it and the adrenalin fades away as I pull up to the first red light in about 500 meters and suddenly realise as I look over that the car I thought was a taxi was in actually fact a police car.

So I begin to panic and think holy crap how come I didn’t get pulled over while I was going 10 15 km/h over the speed limit while a police car was behind me, how did she not know I was speeding.

After that faded away I started to just laugh at my good fortune.

The changes that I have seen in myself I have also seen in my group of friends, as we have group we have always been good mates and I have no doubt that we always will be, but we have begun to separate and follow different paths. We don’t see each other as often as we used to and when we do the conversations seem to be scattered almost like we are holding back. The changes are all different – marriage, relationships, moving out, overseas, stagnation…yes stagnation. I think that one is me, I’m not really going anywhere well I don’t really feel like I am, sure I’m moving but it’s more one foot in front of the other following the normal course of actions. I wait until I finish Uni and see what the “real world “is like with “real” and impacting decisions, but every weekend I am filled with this impending sense of loss and I can’t help feel responsible for.

Well I can’t obviously be responsible for the splitting up of the group, that no one could stop, but I feel hopelessness at the fact that I can do nothing to stop my sense of loss of connection with these people that have I been used to sharing every weekend with. No more beer nights, sports nights at the TAB or at home in front of the TV, games nights (poker, LAN, XBOX) just in general no more boys night out.

As long as I am not on par with them, in terms of lifestyle (still at Uni) I don’t think that it will ever be a level playing field, I have no hope in keeping up because I still have that extra work that I have to do on weekends and all hours of the day. Being the good mates that they are, they understand and we catch up where we can, phone, Internet (for the overseas ones) and the occasional coffee/beer but still rare. I also worry about the ones that I rarely get to see, but still enjoy the company of as well, will their friendships eventually turn into memories as well.

I hope that this summer that things will improve, it will be the summer of ME, I missed out last year and I am going to try to make up for it this year, it has always been the time of year when the festival season rolls around and there are more things to do outside at night, not to mention just sitting out talking crap with a bunch of friends.

Flickr

Digg

coComment & commentful
last.fm

del.icio.us

scuttle

No doubt that you are familiar with the above technologies but maybe not scuttle (mentioned in a previous post), what I am finding is that I am enjoying more and more the community behind these services, finding friends on last.fm who listen to the same music that I listen to and then discovering music through them. Finding links to sites that I would have never found otherwise through del.icio.us again through friends and searching. I can get lost for hours on Flickr combing through photos from groups, looking at photo streams of people how have commented on my photos and learning more and more. As a dedicated slashdot visitor I was a bit cautious about digg but after I tried gave it a go I couldn’t stop it’s now on daily list. The comment services I am still reviewing as per here, so far I have had some good results which I will report back on later.

I am conscious that I do need to experience real life, going out, spending time with friends etc… but this isn’t always possible for one reason or another this has had a few effects so far, not only my boredom but the lack of content that I am able to put up on this site I will try to change that in the coming weeks but for now it’s a rather exciting way for me to gather information about topics that I really enjoy and world I couldn’t have imagined years ago.

Took a weekend to go up the Halls Gap in the Grampians for a bit of time away. The drive wasn’t all that hard and roughly 3 hours out of Melbourne isn’t all that much to ask anyway. We did have a bit of trouble finding our way back to the M8 after we entered ballarat but that’s wasn’t too much of a drama.

I used to do a lot of bush walking back in high school and the Grampians was our place of choice, I’m not certain exactly why since there were other places we could have gone, the Dandenongs for one. But going back brought back quite a few good memories of the place and my time doing The Duke of Edinburgh Award.

We stayed at Gang Gang villas which was in our opinion absolutely excellent, the location is not too far out of the main halls gap town, has a very snug fireplace and layout, beds, cleanliness of the place were all top notch. Couldn’t recommend enough.

We did a few walks but because of the bush fires earlier this year most of the walking tracks are closed. But it was good to see a lot of the regrowth happening around the area.

Leading such a busy life I find it easy to forget the feeling of doing nothing and the sounds of silence, standing at the top of Mt William (not near the communications tower with the generator) and walking a little distance to the right of the lookout towards the edge I found total silence, I couldn’t even hear my own heart beat. It was for a single moment there was nothing and you were looking at absolutely everything that your eye could see, it may sound confusing to you but it was silence and peace to me at the same time and all together very relaxing.

Between climbing mountains or looking at the waterfalls we got to cook our own simple meals and just read, watch a bit of T.V (very little, Sunday night was the most) listen to music. I do feel a little guilty for going all that way and not experiencing more but it was jus so good to sit back and do nothing in particular, to wake up three days straight with an agenda for that day, nothing that had to be completed.

Although returning to Melbourne was a necessary evil the break made coping (for me) with the rest of the semester that little bit easier, but I guess that everything has a compromise, I am going to be be flat out this week with assignments which isn’t fun when you find yourself staying at Uni till 10pm at night 3 days a week.

Buy hey…that’s life.

All four of my subjects require me to purchase text books that are $100 and above the most expensive being a double book reaching the $170 mark. So as a result this week I have been running around looking for second hand books for most of my subjects, so far I can only find one, I will soon try the other channels such as ebay and non-academic second hand book stores. This cost of text books pushes my start up costs for each semester up to about the $500 mark which can impact quite a bit on the back pocket and force me to be tight with money for the next couple of weeks until everything stabilise and debits are paid off.

I have been told and I have heard that there can be some influence as to which book is chosen to each subject because there are sometimes connections between the author, university, subject coordinator and lecturer making the book not always the correct choice for the students particularly if it ends up being rather expensive. I am unsure how true this is and there are cases where it could be legitimate but thinking back I could see this happening on occasion.

My other gripe is that for many of the subjects the books could just as easily be offered in electronic form. Many subjects only use sections, parts of the book or certain chapters it is a little bit of a waste when you consider that you paid $100 of the book and only using $50 worth. University libraries already pay large amounts of money to have digital libraries of books at their disposal for students to use, and in some cases when an electronic book has been accessed a number of times the paper/hard back version of the book is bought. This I see can have two effects for both students and the university; firstly the University will be able to better track it’s book inventory because it will see more accurately what students are reading and where the money should be spent, the second reason I can only speculate but considering that students might end up having more money (although we might pay more in uni fees each passing year) and therefore have a better University experience or even spend more money at Uni on other things.

Just on a side note, I have started to notice the cut backs that the VSU faced are coming through on higher fees for University activities. I guess that I’m just among the many disgruntled University students with no money.

Wedges are a couple of people I used to work with at my first place of employment, after so long it took a little time to relate to them again, we were able to talk for a good little while but after a little bit of time I could feel that sense of ‘running out of conversation’ it’s probably going to be one of those things where we will see each other every so often but not a great deal. No matter what I thought of the night it was good to see them again and we left quite amicable, I vow to email them as often as possible.

Pancakes is another former work college, one which I had a good relationship with and continue to do so, although when we worked it was more party and fun, now it’s slightly more serious and deep. I’m not certain which I prefer more, I had learnt a lot about myself and had heaps of fun in the early days but now that relationship had developed into something that I also enjoy immensely, I now notice how we have changed in the few short years that we have known each other even the past 6 months there as been a noticeable change, mostly for the better. Pancakes were each others rock in the ocean when we were going through personal problems and in a way we still are they are just different problems. I am just uncertain how I am seen by this person, I wish I was more but less, either way I know that we value each other and that’s what counts. I vow regular face to face contact, email contact and the occasionally drunken party.

Salad is one of my more interesting friends, not only mentally but emotionally as well, there is certain something that stirs within myself when ever we meet or talk and it is because of this I have kept the ties of friendship alive otherwise it would have been cut long ago. It is one of those relationships that only survives because one side wants it to but the other doesn’t seem to care (the type I hate the most) and yet I still call to find out what is happening and if anything is new, knowing very well what the answers are going to be, but yet I am there. After every meeting I always feel a sense of happiness and a sort of refresh feeling of myself…once again I cannot pin point the exact cause. I want more but alas this is something that I will never get, and yet I want to know why. I never know where I stand, yet I am always so crystal clear.
This relationship is my biggest annoyance, it’s the one I always think about, the one that I double check, it’s just so…bitter sweet, I just wish there was some sort of signal or noticeable gesture that I could look out for so that I would know that I’m liked or that my presence is favorable, hell even a phone call out of the blue to ask how I’m going or to catch up would be great, but I know that I’ll never get that.
I vow to give it another shot, then give up, then another shot, then give up….I don’t know why I torture myself.

Dinner is one of my best mates even from way back when, we always clicked, hung out and did stuff together, it was never uncomfortable and flowed easy, one of my best and more rewarding relationships. It’s great to know that after this long and even after an absence of 6 months or more, separated by more suburbs than before the synergy is still there. Even though the world around us has changed the fundamentals of us hasn’t. The time just flew by faster than I would have liked, even sitting and watching T.V while we ate was comfortable. Why can’t they all be like this? I vow to try to catch up more often, even if is just phone calls.

Bottom line, I’m not so great dealing with change the fact that the people in front of me had changed so much was a signal that I had changed, although the fact that I still enjoy my life would indicate that I haven’t changed for the worse and the fact that these people from my past still talk to me and we had at least a couple of hours chat would prove somewhat that it wasn’t too hard to put up with me for a little while.

I like my life interesting, and as long as I’m not hurting anyone else or causing myself too much emotional distress I will continue to enjoy interesting, disheartening and wonderful friendships all the time. The variety keeps me on my toes, it’s probably a bit stupid and a lot of wasted time, but overall I’m not depressed about it, most of the time I think that it’s fun, and in the end isn’t that all that matters, that you are having fun.

Why?

So that one can feel better about themselves, because the other is insecure. Or is it just personality, that could be why they are a match, once chases the other allows the chase, like a plug fitting in a socket.

Personally I hate being the one to make all the phone calls having to do the run around. It makes you feel unwanted, sometimes used but most of the time, and worst of all, unsure about the relationship. I am not insecure about myself or my feelings I am very certain, and emotionally stable, which is probably my downfall, its the reason that I keep making those calls against my better judgement or is it my eternal curiosity, I haven’t figured out which yet.

Eventually one person will stop, one will have enough of the chase when they realise that they were chasing nothing at all.
But how do you tell when the same person is consistently nice to you, how to do you see through the smoke screen, I certainly can’t which is why chasing ghosts is such a sport for me, it’s shame because I have lost too many friends that way too. How do I know if someone likes me, platonic of course, is there a way to tell or is verbal conformation that only way?

I was told by a friend that it is a natural occurrence in the context of relationships for people to be followers and gathers, there are those among us who are magnets for people, you naturally gravitate towards them, there is something about them that facilitate
conversation and social scenes, I have seen this and I’m a little annoyed by it mainly because I’m a chaser.

I am probably too harsh, if they don’t show the same amount of enthusiasm that I show I tend to give up on them, but why, could it just be me and the way that I interact with people, of course I speak only of a handful of people that I know, most are not like this and I enjoy their company and I have certainty that they enjoy mine. It is always that 1% that makes the difference, that gets you wondering as you walk home “wow that was a great night, buy why is it always me that makes the contact, if they are not interested why not just say no to coffee?”

I’m not a fan of the one sided romance.

But the only thing that I do hate about my job is the fact that I am always waiting for computers, being an IT tech means being at the mercy of computing power. I always seem to get caught in the moment where the computer is doing something and I’m waiting, essentially looking like I’m doing nothing but really doing something.

Anything from installs to reboots can take time up which makes the job seem like it takes longer than it should and sometimes unjustifable because it did take so long even though you are working the whole time. A lot of the job is troubleshooting, when something goes wrong you have to know what to look for and testing takes time, for me it’s rather annoying because it feels like it should take less time but doesn’t. Searching for solutions to see if anyone else has had the same problem either finding the solution or not finding it.

Considering all this as far as downsides go it’s pretty minor, I wonder if other people have the same thoughts or situations?

Those that I have kept in contact with they have invited me out, and I’m glad to go, but those that haven’t talked to me, or I to them they don’t seem to like me so I’m a little hesitant to head out, considering that the night will involve alcohol and partying which could mean that I will end up a little worse for wear.

I don’t know if I am better off having individual catch up sessions with only the people that I like instead of seeing those that I both like and dislike and throw caution to the wind and hope that nothing too bad happens.

As I don’t really have a choice I guess that I will go along and hopefully it will turn out alright. My other decision that I have to make would be to decide if I should drive or not, driving affords me the possibly of getting home easily while spending less money on drinks, but it could mean that I won’t be drinking, duh!

But drinking has that same ups and downs, I might not find easy transport home, but I could have slightly more fun and on top of that I haven’t had a decent night out with on the grog in quite a while.

As with most things I guess that I’ll just make my decision at the last minute.

I’ll just mention a few good quotes here:

“We have to manage the ethics of the scientists making the robots and the artificial ethics inside the robots.”

…identified key areas that include: ensuring human control of robots; preventing illegal use; protecting data acquired by robots; and establishing clear identification and traceability of the machines.

“Scientists must start analysing these kinds of questions and seeing if laws or regulations are needed to protect the citizen,” said Verruggio. “Robots will develop strong intelligence, and in some ways it will be better than human intelligence.

How far should robots be allowed to influence people’s lives? How can accidents be avoided? Can deliberate harm be prevented? And what happens if robots turn out to be sexy? “The question is what authority are we going to delegate to these machines?” said Professor Ronald Arkin, a roboticist at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. “Are we, for example, going to give robots the ability to execute lethal force, or any force, like crowd control?”

The whole idea is that there will be a team drawing up a code of ethics for both robots/AI and the scientists who create them.

I totally agree with the article above but there are few things that got me thinking that I want to elaborate on.
1.) If we are able to design AI that is similar to us (which I think is almost impossible) we have the problem of their place in our society, because if they are able to behave like humans, then we face a problem ethically of how we treat them: as robots or living things?

If they begin to exhibit basic interaction such as a dog or cat for example then they possibly stop existing as a robot, because if you were to visually ignore the differences between a biological dog and an AI dog why would you treat one crueler than the other if it didn’t obey – why because it’s a robot, but then what defines a robot if the interaction is the same as a biological dog, the internal differences?

If you were presented with two dogs who looked visually exactly the same but underneath one was biological and one was a robot how would you know which one was which? Which one would you choose? The one that obeyed commands better – probably the robot. (I’m obviously disregarding toiletry functions)

The above also extends to humans, like the article says if they are going to be used for crowd control can we as humans hold them ethically responsible for hurting others, if their response to pressure being applied was to push back harder to control the crowd, or if someone was to climb on top of them would they throw them off causing an accidental injury. Can the robot be held ethically responsible, we hold humans responsible when they have done something wrong, but can you send a robot to jail when the possibly of its lifetime is infinity?

But this has probably been thought of by limiting their input/output responsiveness (knowledge) of themselves and the world around them.

2.) Philosophically if we were able to design something that was similar to us, then we face the challenge of defining them no longer as robots but almost humans – which brings us back to ethics again, and if we can truely treat them as servents. This depends of course on how “aware” the preposed AI is supposed to be.
The article mentions something about sex:

“People are going to be having sex with robots within five years,” he said. So should limits be set on the appearance, for example, of such robotic sex toys?

Funnily enough aren’t people having sex with robots already? If you don’t know about this already you should do a search on the Internet for sybian.

The idea of having a robot that could help the elderly is a great idea but I suppose that we have to consider the consequences and limit the abilities of the robot not only for ethical and philosophical reasons but to alleviate the responsibility from the machine.

This is all conjecture of course, and mine at that, because if there is to be a regulating body they would have surely thought about this and restrict how much the potential sentient artificial intelligence, or artificial life would know so to restrict it’s actions, like what is happening now. Hopefully preventing any disaster – major or minor – later on.

To critics who scoff that intelligent robots are a long way off, the roboticists easily riposte that machines can already exert surprising influence over our lives — think about the influence of the internet.

Just my 2 cents.

I admit that it’s not the best look that I’ve ever had, it’s probably up there with those bad mambo t-shits way back when but hey, I don’t care. The girlfriend has decided that I look like crap and proceeded to tell me so, normally when this sort of thing happens I usually give in because I don’t really want it anyway and I was just experimenting, but this time I truly didn’t care and didn’t want to shave because I wanted to see what I would look like after a month of not pruning my facial hairs.

The argument that ensued aside, it got me thinking about how I represent myself to people I know, don’t know (those around me in close proximity) and the general public.

I know that I am of average intelligence and able to converse with people on general topic of conversation, not a criminal or about to become one, could pay for the dinner that I was able to have, dressed nice enough for the restaurant that I was going to eat at. Basically I didn’t think that my appearance reflected the public notion of what someone like me would like, which is interesting because I normally care about what I look like when I’m out in public, making sure that everything goes well and I look clean so as not to arouse suspicion or for someone have doubt in their mind that I was anything but a good citizen.

I don’t know if it was in general defiance or because I actually didn’t care how people judged me because I was (at that moment in time) comfortable which who I was and what I was doing. I found this interesting because normally when I’m out and about I have been guilty of judging people by how they look. You see someone that is dressed in back and sliver chains I instantly think Gothic. Or someone that has obviously taken too much time in preparing their appearance: self obsessed, too much makeup: self conscious, a guy with hair that looks like is consistently in front of a fan: way too much product and possibly metro. These are neither good nor bad judgement but judgement none the less and I am, even though I don’t know it, placing them in a category.
I suppose that we all judge people and it was because I do it, could be why I was afraid of it. I have never taken to judging people on first appearance and making snap decisions about them because time and time again I have been wrong and sometimes with disastrous results, which is probably why I haven’t done anything out of the ordinary like growing a bread, which now makes this little experiment more interesting.

I will go to all those places were I normally frequent and see if people treat or see me differently
I see myself differently as well, it’s almost like the beard has covered up some part of myself that I had consistently been showing the world and was now hidden.

No doubt that when exams are over and I have to return to work I will shave because I don’t want to appearance of someone who is lazy, unclean or didn’t care how they looked (there I go reverting back again) but for now I am intrigued about this and hopefully I will be able to come to a happy medium when it comes time to part with my mask.