And Thats the Holidays

March 4, 2008

Originally Written on 2nd March Sunday 2008

Its Sunday morning, the last day before the holidays start again. Fortunately if I remember correctly there are two preceding long weekends on the way in the coming weeks so its not too bad.

Today I am tieing up all of the loose ends. Which means that I will be compilating the 10 pages of entries which I haven’t uploaded over the past couple of months. I’m also putting together all of the other articles, videos and media that I have to sort out for other projects.

I also want to use to time to fill in some of the gaps over the past few weeks. Theres been some interesting stuff going on, some of which I am afraid that I would prefer to keep to myself. But for everything else, heres the spill:

A few weeks back I went to my Chinese friends 22nd Birthday. We went to a Chinese restraunt out of the city. There were about 15 people in total, 13 Chinese people, 1 Japanese guy and me. As you might expect this was a great opportunity for me to practice my Chinese which I did.

I should probably mention that I didn’t like the restraunt, it didn’t even look like a restraunt, the price was incredibly expensive, the staff were terrible and I think that I got sick from the food there (even though I only managed to eat one small plate of food).

Despite the awful restraunt I had a lot of fun, I met a lot of friendly people. Unfortunately I often found myself completely overwhelmed with the situation at hand. I’d be talking to someone in Chinese and could barely hear them because it was so loud in the restraunt furthermore other people were interrupting saying that I couldn’t understand etc. It was hardly the ideal place to converse in a foreign language.

Fortunately someone moved seats and sat next to me so it was much easier to talk. We were there for maybe 3 hours I think and I only managed to eat a small plate of food because I was too busy talking and listening.

Afterwards we went back to my friends place and did some stuff and then people slowly started to leave. Two of the guys had a PS2 set up, my friend told me to bring some games so I chose KOF XI and Street Fighter Alpha Anthology. I only played a few round of KOF and got my ass handed to me. I don’t think that it was my fault though as my controller was busted and I couldn’t pull off some moves.

I spent more time to become acquainted with the people around me and we talked until quite late. By that time I was so exhausted, I don’t think that I have ever felt so drained. Translation requires so much brain work and when you have to constantly keep that up for an extended period of time its exhausting. So I almost gave up speaking Chinese.

I also gave my friend her present and she liked it very much. I was woken up 2x in the night or should I say in the morning. The Japanese guy couldn’t find the bus stop back to the city and the second time someone poked me asking if I was cold. I wasn’t cold but I was frickin’ asleep!!! Infact I was having a dream about this shmp on the Xbox 360, Raiden Fighters I think it is. ><

From there I just got up and went home with some of the others. I had heaps of fun and made some more Chinese friends which is great. I don’t really want to add any more as I am currently writing a Chinese article about what happened. It has lots of difficult situations for me to put into Chinese so I want to write about it. Currently 800 characters thru, will probably be a pretty large article as I am still no where near getting to the restraunt yet.

Yeah so by the end of the weekend I was exhausted, I had realized that I had probably eaten something bad an got some kind of bug because over the past week I was not feeling very good. Sick in the stomach, tired, sore eyes etc.

I also had a pretty tiring week beforehand as well. Lots of running around, meeting people.

So for the past 2 weeks I have been trying to recover from whatever I caught and doing the usual business; Chinese revision, catching up with friends, writing blog articles, playing games. I guess with a lean towards writing blog articles and Chinese revision. I have been on a roll with my blog articles and I have a fantastic selection of some of my best articles yet on the way. So I am looking forward to posting those.

I have also been organizing my stuff for Uni which starts tomorrow. But beyond that, thats it.

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DP’s Sincerity Tracks

Originally Written on Friday 29th February 2008

I like to think that sincerity plays a significant part in my personality. I actually don’t like posting about it because in my opinion a part of being sincere and considerate is doing so without acknowledgment. In anycase I try to be sincere and also considerate to everyone I know. I guess in particular to my Chinese friends (whom are all exchange students) or my female friends.

Just double thinking that last part most of the people I see these days are either my Chinese friends or female (which make up most of my Uni friends). Anyways, I do this because I have the belief that if someone (or when someone) takes into consideration how I feel then I feel very thankful and quite special. So in turn I think that it is important that I take consideration for other people and their feelings etc.

Something that I have been thinking about is how some of the music I listen to really captures that side of my personality. So I wanted to post up some examples and links to download streams.

How to Save a Life – The Fray
Babylon – David Gray
Don’t Dream It’s Over – Crowded House
You Get What Give – New Radicals
Iris – Goo Goo Dolls
Save Tonight – Eagle Eye Cherry
Blow Up The Pokies – The Whitmans
Changes – 2Pac
The Little Things Give You Away – Linkin Park
On In Five (Bonus Track) – BoySetsFire
Crickets – Alien Ant Farm
The Movies – Alien Ant Farm
My Sacrifice – Creed
Thousand Mile Wish – Finger Eleven
Bright Lights – Matchbox 20
Talk Tonight – Oasis
Thrilloilogy – PowderFinger
Love Your Way – PowderFinger
Ever the Same – Rob Thomas
On Your Own – The Verve
Lucky Man – The Verve
Green Eyes – Coldplay
Cookie Jar – Jack Johnson
Protection – Massive Attack
Unfinished Sympathy – Massive Attack
Fly With You – Pete Murray
Check the Meaning – Richard Ashcroft
Set The Fire To The Third Bar – Snow Patrol (Featuring Martha Wainwright)
Half the Man – Jamiroquai
The Best is Yet to Come – Konami
Takin’ All Day – The Cruel Sea
High – Lighthouse Family
The Impression that I Get – The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
Father and Son – Cat Stevens
People Get Ready – Human Nature
Fall at Your Feet (Acoustic) – James Blunt
Absolutely (Story Of A Girl) – Nine Days

Damn I was only expecting to post about 10 songs and now I have already posted 37 songs and I was still holding a few back! Damn.

I have bolded the most significant tracks.

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Goal Setting for Second Year Uni

Originally Written on Saturday 23rd Feburary

It looks like the long summer holidays are drawing to it’s inevitable close. Man it really has been a long break, I feel as though I have made so much progress and had so many great moments. I want to keep the momentum rolling right through the year though. Which means that it is time for me to set some more goals.

I’ve been thinking about all of this goal setting business in the past few days and have concluded that I should have a tight, relevant list of only a few select goals. I only have a handful in mind but they are all very important.

Now because of my lack of part time work this puts a greater emphasis on my Gamer Blog as well as these upcoming new projects. Last year even with University, weekend work and going out I still managed to fit in about 8hrs a week of additional Chinese practice with my Chinese friends. Looking over this years courses I feel as though this can be easily maintained as long as I am peak performance.

So here is my list:

Chinese

Write, Write, Write! Writing more Chinese essays and articles is the key to putting most of the important things into practice. I need to write more to accommodate the plentiful speaking opportunities that I now have. So I want to focus on writing and getting my friends to check up on it.

Relationships

There is a saying that has been on my mind lately and it goes something like this: surround yourself with great people and you too will feel great. Thankfully I feel as though I am currently surrounded by great, supportive and influential people. As a side note even though I have never really thought much of online friendships etc I have made a great selection of blogging friends via my Gamer Blog. Which I am also very pleased about.

I guess this year I’d like to further advance friendships and network out with more unique people.

Websites

This goal just requires only one thing from me and that is to continue the strong work flow of previous years. What I have discovered recently from my Gamer blog is that I DO have the skills to write some really great articles, my site looks great and is functionable so I don’t need to worry about that anymore I just need to write. So with this, Chinese and Uni I will probably be doing a lot of writing this year. ^_^

There is actually a second part to this which is my new projects. I’ll need to get those out this year. Really this is a time issue. Once the CMS is finished, the design coded and the domain name bought, all I need is to add content. Which isn’t really that difficult, rather it will take a lot of time.

Gaming

Pretty simple this one, I only have two objectives. Buy and finish Metal Gear Solid 4 and attempt to clear up some more games on the huge pile of games to finish.

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