Unfortunately, life has been a few degrees busier than I would like over the past 6 weeks or so. Since I came back from my brief jaunt around SE Asia (and Sydney/Brisbane), life has been been full-on and hasn't offered much in terms of a rest. In no particular order, the main culprits have frisbee, thesis, teaching, and random assorted things I've managed to get myself involved in. In my experience, taking on a few too many responsibilities has less to do with the inability or unwillingness to say "no" when asked to do something, and more to do with a genuine, repeated underestimation of the amount of time required by such things. Of course, that also plays a role in why I seem to be constitutionally prone to lateness. Oh well.
New toy! I just picked up this beauty of a 20" LCD monitor from LG. In addition to getting a good price, I figured that the amount of time that I spend staring at a computer screen allows for such indulgences. I set it up the other day, and so far it's pretty sweet. At the moment I have my MacBook open, allowing for 2 screens - just drag the mouse off to the far left of one screen and it pops up on the far right of the other one. Pretty cool, really. :)
Melbourne University is officially on break at the moment, with this past Friday marking the beginning of a 2 week holiday. I will be marking essays for most of this upcoming week - something I am less than enthused about, needless to say - before heading to the Gold Coast in Southern Queensland for 2007 Australian University Games. I've heard the GC referred to as the "South Florida" of Australia on a few occasion, and I believe we're staying in Surfers Paradise. It's not exactly shaping up to be an idyllic, bucolic, Thorovean retreat...but that's OK too. Think of a (slightly) classier, more built up, and newer version of South Myrtle Beach with bigger waves and higher buildings, and you have my rough preconception.
Frisbee has been going well, but has been quite busy over the past 2 months. Similarly to last year, Chilly (i.e. my Melbourne-based club team) has been playing at the same time as the Melbourne University team. The Chilly season began in mid-January, so all in all it's been quite a long season - with the exception of a week off here or there, I've been playing at least 3 times a week since then, with 4 trainings per week the routine over the past 2 months. Once Uni Games and the National Championships for the Mixed Division (Oct. 5-7 in Sydney) are over, I'll be able to enjoy a break of a few weeks. I'm actually looking quite forward to it, as my body is starting to remind me that it needs a rest, and I can feel the initial warnings of "frisbee burnout" starting to appear. We had a tournament here in Melbourne last weekend that was a large part of the selection process for the National Team. The first cuts will be announced in a few weeks, and while nothing can be guaranteed, I feel pretty good about my chances of making it to the next stage of the process. The final team that will go the World Championships in Vancouver next year (the equivalent of the Ultimate World Cup) will be announced in late Jan/early Feb. Here's the main document detailing the timing of the process.
Apologies for the long delay in posting - hopefully this week of non-teaching will allow for a few belated updates.
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