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No means a comedy

One more exam over and it wasn’t as hard as I thought but I am still only aiming for 28/50 which will give me a credit for the course, now I just have the last one on Monday morning which is going to be a tough one as whilst I enjoy learning about contemporary Chinese politics I am not the best at remembering the names and dates. I did these two layouts when I came home from the exam as a wee break from the books. Who has been scrapping long enough to remember that Kangaroo and Joey paper on the first layout? I bought that sheet of paper back in early 2003 and I know it was released a while before then.

this is what I Love! Wollemi Pine

After dropping Matthew at a friend’s house this evening I pulled into the video store on the way home and picked up a couple of movies to watch with Mum as she can’t sit in the seats at the cinema yet and there was nothing on TV. The movie we watched tonight was a French movie called Me and My Sister (Les Soeurs Fâchées), the reviews on the back said it was “Delicious, an enjoyable bitchy comedy”, whilst it certainly had its bitchy factor it was by no means a comedy, so that was bit of a let down. It was an interesting movie but going into it thinking it was going to be a comedy meant that our expectations were let down a bit.

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Studying, Not Studying and Studying

“In the final analysis, human security is a child who did not die, a disease that did not spread, a job that was not cut, an ethnic tension that did not explode in violence, a dissident who was not silenced. Human security is not a concern with weapons-it is a concern with human life and dignity.”
UN Human Development Report 1994, p229.

Powerful words which I found in an equally powerful reading by Steve Smith (Smith, S. (2004). Singing Our World into Existence: International Relations Theory and September 11: Presidential Address to the International Studies Association, February 27, 2003, Portland. International Studies Quarterly, 48 (3) pp. 499-515(17)), if you happen to come across it or have access to any of the various academic databases it is well worth a read even if you are not an International Relations person and is quite an easy read too.

The last couple of days I have spent doing exams, studying, not studying and studying (probably more of the middle one than I should have done but I have kept up with my study all semester so it is all in there somewhere I just need to pull it out at the right time). I have one exam tomorrow worth 50% and then I have my last one on Monday morning.

Mum saw the lower limb specialist the other night and was told that she has a Tibial Plateau Fracture and is booked in for a CAT scan on Monday morning to decide if she will need surgery or not, it seems that this type of brake can be quite iffy in terms of management. At the moment she looks like having 6 weeks in plaster and than another 6 weeks at home getting back on her legs.

I had started to write a bit on my love of the grocery store but I don’t really know if it had any point so it can wait for another time.

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plaster from toes to mid thigh

Well Mum is not going anywhere fast. She has a leg in plaster and Matthew and I are rapidly adding to the list of reasons why the household needs a laptop. The following is the email that she dictated to Pabbi (hence it does not talk about Matthew and I) that she sent to friends and family. Saves me typing it out.

On Sunday I broke my leg. Paul is typing this for me while I lie in Helen’s bed with my right leg on a pillow. Paul has been fist class at looking after me and helping me etc over this episode

I have plaster from my toes to mid thigh.

I am pain free.

Now for the details:
The following is my own fault, I know I have a tendency to be a bit gung ho and normally I keep that well under control, but on Sunday I didn’t

On Sunday I was leading a small group on a walk from Lemon tree flat to Sentinel point and Mt Huntly (South of Cunningham’s gap) We went up a cliff break on a rope but I decided to come down without the rope. I was almost down when I slipped a bit and where my foot landed gave away, and my foot went in a hole almost to my knee, and I kept going. Before I got myself disentangled from that, I immediately I knew I had done something bad to my knee. I sat still for a while and put some more clothes on, the general consensus was that I had done a ligament bandaged my knee and walked out with the help of two walking poles and someone carried my pack. it was a slow walk. As long as I did not try a twisting movement of my knee and I walked slowly it was quite ok. We had to walk about an hour and a half before we got to the end of the 4 wheel drive road. One of the men had gone ahead and he got back there with his 4wheel drive the same time as we did. Went back to camp and had a sleep while I waited for Kay, my traveling companion to come back from her walk.

Kay packed us up and drove my car to Brisbane. Because I thought I had done a ligament I did not go to the hospital that night but hired crutches on the way home.

On Monday Paul took me to the 24 hour medical centre at Kedron and I had xrays of my knee. The GP there thinks I have fractured the top of my Tibia (shinbone) I was put in plaster (Paul did a great job of assisting the nurse as this sort of plaster is a 2 person job)

I was given a referral to a lower limb specialist but he was not open for business today, I shall call him tomorrow morning.

More news when I know more.

Meanwhile I am drowning in marking and reports. Fortunately a recently retired teacher from my school is taking my classes, by pot luck she also teaches Maths A, B and C

What she doesn’t say is that the GP said that best case scenario she is back at school in a couple of weeks, worst case scenario she may never go back to teaching. It seems that this sort of break can have all sorts of complications. We are all adapting our life to our new found situation. Once she has finished her marking, she plans to break out the embroidery etc that needs to be finished off as unfortunately unless we get a new sewing machine table there is no way she will be quilting.

I had my first exam today which I am pretty sure I did alright in, I knew which questions would be on the exam so I was able to prepare my essays beforehand. I have another exam tomorrow which is for my Ethics and International Relations subject, even more fun.

We have evolved from having a Nintendo 64 which Matthew and I were given for Christmas many moons ago to having a Nintendo GameCube that Matthew bought off eBay for cheap as people sell in preparation for getting a Nintendo Wii. I can’t wait to get Burnout for it as that is one game that I rocked at when I used to play at it my ex-boyfriend’s house. Matthew is planning on attempting to get Mum hooked into playing the games with him; however I do not see that as a likely event.

I picked up this pretty cool book in the 75% bin at Borders today – All My Life For Sale, it is the catalogue of a man selling almost all of his worldly possessions on the internet and the history and future of the items, pretty darn cool 🙂

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as young as we act

only as young as you actI handed in my last essay yesterday. Now I just have classes today and tomorrow, swotvac (study week) next week and then four exams in the two week exam block that follows.So between catching up on some TV (McLeod’s Daughters, ER and The Glass House) and working on a little surprise I did a page which ended up been so much simpler than I had planned. As you can probably tell it is only 1 photo, 1 piece of “paper”, a font and a little dose of Helen.

These are two of my sweet nieces, like every day I spent in Iceland I can play this day out on the TV in my head but this day something very special happened. Birta, Silja and I were waiting in the car whilst my brother went to get something, which meant we were just going crazy singing along to Icelandic Pop. Then my brother came back and said a few sentences, which left the girls in shock. They had just made the connection between me been their father’s sister and that meaning I was their aunt. It was classic.

We then met up with my sister-in-law and then spent the rest of the day at the Reykjavik Children’s Zoo and Park. This meant that big kids and little kids alike got to have fun watching animals and playing in one big and very cool adventure playground. 🙂

If someone came up to me tomorrow and said “here is a ticket to Iceland”, I would take it and run!

I have four nieces, five nephews, two sisters, four brothers and a scores and scores of aunts, uncles, cousins and the like in Iceland. Who are all in my mind each and every day.

If I was magical I would pick Iceland up and move it to just off the coast from Brisbane and then I would put a magical dome over it so it would retain all its Icelandic weather and stuff. Then Iceland would just be a short trip from Brisbane. How much would that rock?

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Holy Cripes Batman!

Holy Cripes Batman!

I got 35.5/40 for the essay on Japan and the modern day effects of their past military agressions that I really did not like doing. Can you say Happy! 😀

I was bouncing round the room like crazy.
Then I put the camera on the tripod and proceeded to take 124 photos of myself.

But can you spot my fake tooth? or my ultra cool Mountain Goats t-shirt 🙂

I  have the final exam for this subject today and unless I bomb out on the exam I will be getting a distinction.

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Big changes ahead in China

Today I have written something like 1300 words or so only about 200 words till I reach my target but I will reach that when I finish my editing and write my conclusion.

The funny thing is that the essay I am doing is one that I have found reasonably hard to write even though it is on a topic that interests me more than any of the other essays I have done in my life. It is on a topic that I know really well and without a doubt will be a topic that I will follow for the rest of my life irrespective of what field I end up in.

I am doing my essay on the implications that the growing disparity in birth sex ratios is starting to cause in China.

You say what? Parts of East and South Asia are seeing a massive shift away from the natural population sex ratio that is roughly 104 males to 100 females. The reasons behind this vary from country to country.

In some provinces in China this ratio is 137 males to 100 females, this was in the 1-4 years age group in the 1995 census.

Think about that in a society where traditionally 99.9999% of the population were married at some stage of their life, even if a son died before he was able to get married, a ghost marriage would occur typically with a girl who had died before marriage so that their souls would have peace. Historically in Western Europe, about 85% of the population or so would marry. In the case mentioned if there was no migration in or out of this province and 2% of the females for some reason did not marry, there could be at least 2 in 5 males who would not have the chance to marry.

In saying that though the average for the lower age groups ie the people who have not yet married is around 116:100 – which would mean that you at looking at what 1 in 6 males not marrying who are going to have to adapt to a life of bachelorhood in a society where it has not been a traditonally accepted lifestyle.

This will increase before it decreases. Big changes ahead in China.

Why are the ratios so large? In China it is due in part to a number of reasons.

  1. Cultural preference for a son, as they carry on the family line.
  2. Declining total fertility rate which was pushed rapidly along with population control introduced in 1979 aka “One Child Policy”
  3. Access to prenatal sex determination technology and abortions.
  4. Neglect or infanticide of girls.
  5. Underreporting of female births (though in the whole this is believed to a lesser problem).


That is just some of the stuff I am writing about and I really enjoy it. So there is a sneak peak into the life of a final year Asian Studies student.

Bit of a change away from what I normally write about but hey it is something that interests me.

Ohh and you may have noticed a few cosmetic changes round the place. I have changed the images in my banner and a few other little things.