Money and Mansions

Today I don't claim to have invented my own inspiration... We've spoken of how limited that is these days :). But I was looking a one of the many, many photo blogs of the world; and one of the few I 'follow' in a very loose sense of that word... And there was a photo of summer mansions the blogger called them... The blog is Aronaeveryday which I might link to if I was feeling slightly more technological... Now all I know of these photos is they are of Arona... and that is where my knowledge ends... I'm assuming Arona is in Europe... somewhere... but really... to an Australian many 'european' things can't be segregated into their own countries without specific knowledge... Which I'm sure some europeans would be quite scandalised by :)...

Anyway beyond discussing Europe, which is guaranteed to crop up again as I get further into the topic at any rate… Back to the topic of summer mansions… He spoke (this was one of the few photos which had a sort of explanation outside the realm of the photo subject) of the closing the summer mansions as children and grandchildren go back to school etc… As though this was your run of the mill everyday occurrence. Maybe it is… somewhere.

Of course kids go in and out of school here as much as anywhere else… I have even heard some people speak of vacation homes (generally some kind of beach house)… But to me it seems so out of this world when they talk of these mansions… It is so extravagant. It is one of those signs of ‘old money’… There was a time when old money ruled the world, royal families and nobility and the like… However these days we are much more a world of new money… Celebrities and sports greats and entrepreneurs who make greatness from nothing… And new money acts in some ways rather differently to new money…

You certainly don’t hear about old money (unless it is very young and reckless thereby overindulged by media old money heirs) very much in the news… It is occasionally spoken of in books, though in many instances even that is rather speculation of the lifestyle. In the books I read it is very VERY romanticised :)… But it is completely out of this world to any regular everyday folk like myself…

Now here is where Europe comes back into the equation. Europe does old money in ways Australians couldn’t dream of… Australia has only been a country 100 or so years… and inhabited by a european originating people less than 3 times that… I couldn’t think of quite the right way to phrase that particular development… but anyway… Europe has random structures of little importance older than my COUNTRY… So these summer mansions in many cases are probably older than Australia and the money holding a few of them (no doubt many have changed hands with rises and falls in fortunes) probably older still…

That blows my mind… There are some people in the world that are rich beyond filthy rich… Really the filthy rich are the stars who squander their wealth and what not… Though give them a hundred years… Some of the celebrities are no doubt the beginning of a new collection of old money families… Though I doubt they’ll ever be quite the same as the others… The rich way of life with their summer mansions… I mean they aren’t even summer homes… no these places are MANSIONS… no doubt with balls and dinner parties to boot… And now I am getting my wires crossed with romance fiction again…

Well… I don’t have money… I doubt I’ll ever meet anybody that does… and I don’t really mind… I live solidly in the middle class… I expect I always will… though I can never know what exactly God as in store for my life… But the very idea of old money is mind boggling. I don’t know what to do with my whole paycheck… think I’m doing great cuz I’ve managed to save up a couple grand over the past year… and i’m talking POCKET CHANGE to some people in the world… That is what astounds me… Goes to show that it doesn’t matter at all… I have more than enough without the millions…

At any rate… I have a summer home… It is my family home… I guess that is quite the same as these summer mansions actually… Come Christmas (cause being awesome christmas and summer are the same things in aus) everybody lives in our house for the holidays… My grandad, my mum, her brothers, me and my brother, my uncle’s girlfriend and kids… Everybody it is a full house indeed… Feeling the love :)… Who needs a mansion anyway… I have a perfect good piece of floor and I love it :)

Trying a New Thing

Ok... So engineering degrees are so much more painful than I ever imagined... I only changed one subject to go from my light and easy science degree to this hard core constant death elec eng course... Apparently that is all it takes... I mean Indonesian wasn't what I would call easy... For the mathematically minded it was my worst subject... I had the analytical side of things down.... Language is simply a code... you have to learn how you can but the pieces together in ways that make sense... But to speak it? yeah... not so good... Plus... there are all those little things with the code puzzle that you can't quite understand... like why can i say this... but not that? in English it would work just fine... pfft if all languages are not going to be the same they could at least follow similar rules... Thats just me wishing a could be learning languages still :( not until third year when I get some semi free electives.




Well as you can probably tell this is rather different to most of my earlier posts. My brain has imploded and I am not longer curious about anything nor do I have the time I have had in past to ponder. Well I still do at times... but it is in general entirely unproductive to the extent of there being no real topic or base. Which isn't to say it isn't interesting at times, it is always interesting to sit back and see how the most seemingly random things are connected somewhere deep inside your brain. It is a game my brain is particularly good for... for an analytical thinker my brain follows some particularly convoluted paths at times. I would probably say that it meanders. More because I love the word than for any practical purpose : P.

So this... Right here and now? Is me procrastinating bad. I'm avoiding my pre-lab report for tomorrow's lab. Notably it IS tomorrow's lab so I'll have to get into it after I've typed for a bit. I was starting to feel pretty bad for not having written on here in ages. Though it was essentially because all good things I once had to say (yes I know its a thing of perception but to me they were good) have left me. I could regale you with tales of op amps and high pass filters... about which I handed in a lab just yesterday. But I would probably be telling you wrong things... 32 pages dedicated to nothingness was basically my lab report. I actually did not complete about 50% of what was required in the lab report.. Which made for a lot of theorising and not much actual discovery of anything.

To relate back to my title briefly... When I stuck it in there I was referring to the fact that my blogging has completely changed tacks due to my lack of ponderings however I am noticing that it has, in fact, worked a large number of levels. But then with life being a dynamic on so many levels I guess this has to be the way of things doesn't it...

New Things in my life right now -

1. Blessed with a job that doesn't generally require me to work weekends I haven't enjoyed a proper weekend (due to work and not typical uni-ness) in more than a month
2. A horrendous crush on one of the guys from my uni christian group - and i really HATE having to use the word crush - it is so very adolescent - but nevertheless this is pathetic enough that that is the only word appropriate
3. A whole new lab report (the sequel to the terror I mentioned a little earlier and its worth an even bigger percentage of my course mark.. darn it!)
4. Academic Struggle - this is where I admit to being your typical high school over achiever who didn't have to put it too much effort to achieve the marks however I also have the disposition that requires to try my arse off if i'm not achieving the top marks - that particular combination makes for a terrible stress at uni i've noticed...
5. Brain block - it isn't writers block I'm not a writer.. but my brain is my best source of entertainment - and occasionally other peoples entertainment (generally unintentionally) - and it just hasn't been doing its thing as well as it usually does...
6. Ebay aversion - ok a self inflicted incident where I purchased a computer completely accidentally... I was bidding for the sake of it expecting somebody else to bid over me... I was new to ebay so I guess the reality of it being real money hadn't quite sunk it... or something... maybe I have a gambling inclination which is makes it a good thing I don't do it... anyhow but apparently that was about the right price for the item cuz people stopped bidding about then too.... opps... ahhh well... every person needs 3 computers... i'll probably pass one on to my bestie or something...

Of course being life I'm sure there are lot more new things in my life... Some good others not so... but that is probably a pretty good list of the things that would be even a little bit interesting... It still feels like I have been going through a stint of change... I'm sure you know the feeling. Change is painful, it pinches and scraps like a bitch (to use the standardised slang of my peer group). Wow and now I am referencing my peer group in my blog entries... I have spent too much time in the last week doing lab reports... This weekend it will be essay writing... no matter how many times I try the excuse I'm an engineer not an arts student, I don't write essays my employer makes me take this additional course, basically a english communications subject or something, which is all about how to write letters and documents and academic essays and conduct speeches and the like.... Not fun... It is even run by the oddest instructor imaginable... but then anybody who can feel as passionately for the correct layout for an address block has to be a little odd i suppose...

I have procrastinated for too long... I probably wont be back for a while again... Sad though it is for the nobody that will probably read this : P.

My Speech

Good Afternoon. My name is Daisy and I’m going to be speaking for the next 4 minutes about how to talk for 3 minutes. I will be covering topics and techniques as well as reasons why the ability to talk for 3 minutes is a crucial skill.

The beauty of the 3 minute speech is that it can in essence be about anything. Because of the brevity however it is essential to pick a subject without too much complexity or to choose a single component of the larger topic.

For a more formal level of speech some preparation should be involved in the topic selection process. It is important to start off with more information that could be covered in a 3 minute period to ensure that even with forgotten pieces of information the 3 minute mark is achievable. From the total selection of information you should then choose the most important pieces of information. Think of this as how you would explain your topic given 15-30 seconds. This also becomes handy later for given your speech an introduction. These are the points about your topic that you consider to be the backbone of your speech. Using it shuffle your information around into categories to cover your 15 second scenario points.

In more informal situations and when discussing things you are very familiar with it is possible to use a more fluid technique requiring less preparation. This method relies heavily upon mental agility about the topic. I personally call this method the ‘peg’ method.

Named after a primary school punishment for talking in the back row the ‘peg’ method is designed on the idea of a single point of stimulus from which the speech must flow. In the original context the student would be given an object from the teachers box of trinkets, most memorably a small white peg, and be required to talk for 2 minutes. Understandably this was not necessarily a successful affair. Unfamiliarity with the centre point of the speech often led to heavy reliance upon pauses punctuated by umm or arr as well as stilted topic development and large jumps in logic. Because of this I would not recommended this method for speeches outside of a peer level.

Another more fluid method of speech would be the story method. This as with telling a story means starting at the beginning and running through to an end point. This can be used for less argumentative styled speeches. They are less effective at emphasising any one particular point and can characterised by poor outlined introductions. They do however give your audience a good representation of the connections in your topic or the journey taken from point A to point B.

Now why would you bother to master the art of the 3 minute speech at all? Surely being able to talk for a few minutes at a time doesn’t really help you do anything much… Except procrastinate with your friends or tell somebody about the fun day you had Both of which you are perfectly capable of already without any excessive practice… However how about explaining yourself, whether it be in a good or a bad context, to a boss or superior… Given a short and direct instruction or explanation to a larger group whether they are peers or more critically subordinates. You need to be aware of you own abilities when speaking in order to give a good impression of yourself.

All of the aspects of a 3 minute speech are the same as those for a 5, 10 or even 30 minute speech only in a less complex capacity. By training yourself out of bad habits in the 3 minute time frame it becomes more easy for you to transfer your skills onto the longer speeches without committing too many faux pars. Bad habits such as resorting to umm or arr are accentuated by the length and complexity of a speech and topic. It is only by practicing on the shorter speeches that you can minimise and aim at eliminating such a tendency.

Well I have given you a brief 4 minute look in to the hows and whys of 3 minute speeches. Hopefully this will make you appreciate the reasoning behind the practice just a little bit more.

One of those delightful assessment tasks you do because you have to do… I got stuck we a pretty dodgey topic because i did my initial 3 minute speech on how to talk for three minutes (didn’t prepare perhaps the way i might have had i realised I’d be stuck with the same topic for our assessable version).

Cutting It All Away

Thankfully the title is by no means a literal representation of my feelings. In fact it is something more often said with a great deal of pleasure than any amount of pain or sadness… For those who haven’t come across the term – popular slang where i’m from. Cut away means to no longer be doing or be required to do something… and it can be anything. Seems like a straight forward enough definition doesn’t it? I don’t know why it is a more widely used term… And yet many of my friends from home give me that… you’re doing it again… look when i use it…

Maybe there are places in the world where such a term is not needed… but I doubt it… Everybody is waiting to cut away, hoping to cut away, wishing something would be cut away even before it begins. If people could have their way I reckon nobody would do anything much at all ever if they could. Talk about the world grinding to a stop. Unfortunately as sure as the earth will not stop spinning round people can’t stop either. Not that that’s what people want anyway they’re just doing the whole greener pastures thing :). Life’s never great so somebody must being better off them me and somehow I want to be where and what they are…

But anyway in my typically distracted manner I perhaps neglected to mention WHY the topic of cut away is on the brain at the moment. Basically I found out that a computer lab had been correctly dated and is not due tomorrow but NEXT week. A very very good thing if like me you aren’t quite sure why it is your code is adding and not subtracting as directed and you would really appreciate a lab demonstrator’s help…

OK so I basically have no belief in karma but some things are easiest to explain to others with such token phrase… Basically I am blaming the tedious task my friend brought up for me on the fact that I was rejoicing in not having as much work as I thought I did this evening. Note that I didn’t even go so far as to say NO work… but then with work loads like engineering students do less work is rather like no work… Yippee!

Well… This was what I was going to do with my spare time before dinner. Unfortunately that time doesn’t exist any longer… (the big problem about stuff being cut away is that it leaves empty space for new stuff to be inserted) So I say farewell and get on with dinner… and the remaining study I still manage to have for tomorrow…

Being a Team Player

AHHHHH!!! Sooo… Uni is suddenly SO much harder. All of a sudden it isn’t – every explained out and no lab preps and no real requirement for work outside of classes and suddenly it is – pre-labs and readings and general confusion that needs time, time and more time to be sorted out in my head. Time would be a wonderful thing… if I had any. The sad part is I know I would have time if I didn’t need to spend all of my time working at my constantly procrastination slowed pace. I’m really coming to despise the procrastination addiction. Work, work and more work doesn’t get helped by that tendency one bit.

Ok. Why is this semester SO MUCH worse than the last one? Apart from changing degree streams and thus missing some of the foundation information for one of my current classes that same class is a real believer in ‘read it’. Two text books and 10-15 pages per text book per reading isn’t much fun. Doing the readings is essential. The lecturer hasn’t got the time to get through everything in class… and yet he does have time to talk about… All forms of nothing for half an hour of the one hour lecture. Oh life is truly wonderful.

(Me choking on my workload at some point in the last week)

- - -

So… I’ve just been through some of the worst weeks of my life… This semester is shaping up to be just fantastic (how I wish there was a stock standard way to show sarcasm in print). My brain feels like it has the consistency of mush and even now I know I should be studying the day away. I’ve already had the luxury of whiling yesterday away.. far from any of my school books… Unfortunate that that doesn’t last forever and even more unfortunate that it only really has the effect of shortening my weekend from 2 days to 1…

I don’t play any of the stock standard sports at the moment. I don’t know how but it seems as though the one sporting team I thought I was a part of has kicked me out somehow… A little bit awkward but given my newfound work load probably not all that bad in the scheme of things. However I do still belong to one team. It isn’t a sport or competitive team or anything. We are a performance team – our job is basically PR for our uni or something. That’s pretty cool really it means that we have the opportunity to travel a couple of times to… well basically… to show off. It’s good fun.

I love being part of a team. I am one of those people who loves a good sense of belonging. Probably why I choose to live on at the university and most definitely why I try to be a member of a team where I can be. Some teams are definitely better than others too. The performance team? one of my better ones :). I’m an introvert but I love being in social environments none the less so I rely on other people for the actual social interactions. I’m just a watcher. However… I’m not a big fan of other watchers who I see as being better at it than I am…

One of our team leaders… the second… is a real introvert. And yet he still makes for a great leader. He is amazingly quiet and withdrawn 90% of the time and then he stands in front of everybody and speaks up and has a confidence about him that makes me rather… I suppose the word is envious. I find it frustrating because I always link being largely introverted with my generally uncomfortable and unnatural ability to lead. To watch somebody who manages to separate one from the other. It is like looking the would be if I could be… Something to work at… Makes me wish I wasn’t the fearful person I am by nature – terrified of other people’s judgement… that’s me.

Is there a Perfectionists Anonymous?…

I feel like today is as good a day as any to proof my tentative sanity is just that… tentative. However it is also a personal belief of mine that sanity… much that same as beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What is it they say? Its sane to think yourself insane and many an insane person thinks themself sane. A very good thing too considering I’m positive I’m not sane much of the time. Sanity is much the same as the ‘normal’ nothing is completely normal but it some are more closely aligned to the social construct than others.

People seem to enjoy doing the extrapolation thing. Human law of averages… it isn’t necessarily the average but it looks ‘good’. Funny how all these words are interdependent too… its ‘normal’ to be ‘good’ and that means your ‘sane’ also. What that says about me, a non believer in the generalised ‘normal’ I don’t know… I think I prefer it this way though. Getting stuck in the ‘normals’ which then become confused by human desire with the current ‘perfects’ is no good for anybody. The number of health problems, unrealistic expectations and unachievable goals that come from all that… well you could say that's normal too.

Anyhow. Despite my refusal to admit to there being a wide swept normal or a truly universal perfect I myself am a perfectionist. If Monday-itis can be a recognised mental condition then perfectionist must also be. Though it hasn’t made the news in the last few years like Monday-itis has for me to be sure of anything. All I know is it leads to all kinds of personally pessimistic thought accompanied by unrealistic stress levels. So what do I do? Pick a high stress occupation but that’s another thing entirely. One thing I do have going for me is I don’t suffer from Monday-itis I suppose.

Well on to the perfectionist issue. I guess there is a lot of forms of perfectionism… each to their own and all that. No too minds are alike… a good thing because similar personalities tend to get on each others nerves. Ahhh movie facts… never the less it is true in real life to varying extents. Getting back to my perfectionism though. It is interesting how it works. Perfectionism is something even I would associate with compulsive planners and real study bunnies. A personality I admittedly went through in my younger years but have… unfortunately for my studies… grown out of.

The current day me is a world class procrastinator and a terrible planner. I was in charge of arranging an outing for all the residents of our building… not my strong point. One of those times when you don’t appreciate being volunteered by another person… if one ever appreciates being volunteered by somebody else that is. At any rate perfectionism combined with the addictive tendency to procrastinate leads to even more stress… I remember at school not being able to identify if I’d ever had a headache… let alone could remember what one felt like. These days its a good day when I don’t develop the minor stress ache.

However a lot of people look at me as just a little bit odd if not ridiculous from time to time. People accept things like the fear of heights or the fear of spiders – though regrettably occasionally with some humour at the suffers expense. For me I have the basic fear of public speaking, from there I also have a fear of telephoning people – it gets better only with people I know well. I often have to lock up myself in my room and even start a countdown to get the ball rolling when I have to ring out. I had this for a number of years thinking it was something specific about telephones that was bad… well it is and they certainly make things worse… but my problem actually arises from being forced to ask something of another person.

I have really bad people skills. Partially simply because I’m introverted by nature and find my own company more comfortable. Perfectionism however emphasises that… it makes me constantly aware of every little thing wrong with me… whether realistic or not. The need to not be like that makes me more and more uncomfortable which leads to more things wrong – and you can see the negative cycle spiral from there. It also makes me often a bad loser. Be it at games or homework questions or… just about anything else.

I can’t tell if it is the perfectionist spotting it or the sane person within but I HATE what perfectionism makes me do. As a grow older I’m getting better at it all… I can ring the people I have to to get the job done – though if there is a web form process for it I’ll take it every time. I am able to spot when things don’t need to matter to me… Unfortunately I still only have to degrees of caring stress out or ‘I don’t get a damn’. I’m still working on the ever essential middle ground there. Caring too much is possibly bad for my health but it isn’t so bad… but the caring too little is just as hazardous. So this is what I do in my spare time… analyse my own faults. Actually personality typing and typical human responses… all very interesting to me. However this is enough or I’ll never keep up on my study…

In Contact – Sort of…

Welcome back to the hell hole… I did get a talk something along those lines this morning. Just great. The only good thing about being back in this place is switching my brain back on. Well I certainly hope it turns back on or I’ll be screwed attempting to maintain my average. Attended my first classes of the semester today and I’m very glad that Mondays have gone from my worst to my best day of the week. Ease myself back into the swing of things… hopefully… as into things as you ever get in this place at any rate.

But anyway… As for a topic for me to ramble about… I’m sadly lacking. I was thinking about what it means to be ‘incommunicado’ the other day. But unfortunately I lost all train of thought before I got back to my computer… In brief (as that’s as good as I do remember the topic). That incommunicado is a situation that can be reached these days simply by switching off a mobile phone. Depending on your work based popularity it could be 5 minutes or 5 days (I fill sorry for the last group) but eventually people will fell completely unable to contact you.

It was more about the modern day dependency on technology for people tracking. And the instantaneous stress out that often takes hold if you can’t get at a hold of a person RIGHT THIS SECOND. Perhaps this is also due to an increasing tendency for people to leave stuff… of all degrees of importance… to the last minute. Its habit… because they can. The quicker you can get into contact with people some of the time, the quicker you assume you can get into contact with people all the time. Its funny how that works… its like the movie Click really… That's about the most productive thing i did yesterday – watch Click. Rather clique sort of a movie though really.

Can something like procrastination be considered to be an epidemic? Anyway they say it is something the younger generations suffer from tremendously from the habit. Short attention spans and procrastination go hand in hand. It tends to be more the attention span that people worry about… but nevertheless. Procrastination the generations increasing inability to plan in the long term or pay attention for periods of time comes from an age of instant response. People have not always expected a reply a few days before to make the arrangements so in the human generalising manner they assume people are never going to expect a few days notice… and from there it progresses.

This topic actually leads me onto something else… One of those things you notice while talking on MSN. You must remember I am a Gen Y member, 18 and proud… Constant but not personal contact with our friends is something we experienced all through high school. Texting from school to home, instant messaging once you’re at home, phone calls if you must (never my favourite thing though). A friend and I were discussing procrastination. As a note this is perhaps the best topic to discuss when attempting to procrastinate without anything really to talk about. The number of hours I have spent procrastinating and discussing the simple fact that I’m procrastinating I’m sure would be quite amazing.

Though as always we weren’t simply discussing procrastination. In fact we were discussing T.V. usage… and the fact that I personally do not have access to television during the working week very easily. Not that I don’t have a number of T.V. series on DVD to while away the time but still… So from there it lead on to the challenge that because I don’t have television i probably get a lot more done. I wish. If i locked myself in a room with nothing by my work to occupy me I would procrastinate… daydream, outright sleep, knocking my head against the wall rather than work I’m sure it wouldn’t matter. In this particular conversation, remembering I have all the distractions of my room (including 2 computers – one of those stories…), I picked up on Facebook.

Facebook is one more of those things which just allows our generation to confirm our generalisations about life. The whole constant contact thing really goes to the extreme on there. You don’t have to be on there at the same time as your friend to talk, to communicate, to ‘feel a part of their lives’ or something equally as ridiculous when you say it out loud. At the same time it also provides an outlet for procrastination. One of the things with procrastination is it is almost always worse in company – however artificial. I procrastinate on Facebook… a lot.

Ever sat on your homepage just WAITING from somebody else to say something on their Facebook page? Not even so you can reply to it… Just to read it… to ‘give you something to do’… Incapable of giving yourself something to do even though you obviously have something you should be doing… or else why procrastinate? The less you have to do the less desire you have to do anything… Or that’s how I find it when i go from work to holidays and back to work again.

This time I’ve really done it… There isn’t a much of a link between any of my ideas here… I’ve had as much thought I suppose recently but not the normal leading argument type of thinking I often have with myself. Ahh well… maybe after spending a few hours staring at a Facebook page – something I haven’t done in a few days – something will come to me. Until then.