Very odd, I’ve just noticed that this month, none of my blog entries were written on Wednesday. I’m thinking, “What’s so special about Wednesday? I finish tutoring by 9 PM, should have time to write. Is Wednesday boring? No, Policy class is on Wednesday and I always rant about hippies after that class…” Hmm.

I had a really good weekend. There were so many fun things lined up — a comedy production by medical students, a wedding, a symphony concert, shopping with mum, watching Pride & Prejudice with Damjan. The problem was that I had lots of homework and dance chores too. I struggled with myself, boy, did I struggle. It wouldn’t all fit. What could I cancel? (Why did I waste Friday watching midday telemovies?)

I’ve been studying economics and I am amazed that economics is not about money or stockmarkets or accounting. Economics is about the choices people make about scarce resources. My scarcest resource is time. What is the opportunity cost of doing my homework? Losing time with Damjan, for one thing. This is my most valued alternative.

I think I could go on about the neatness of economics a bit more but not today. Anyway, I decided that I could afford relaxation time with Damo ‘coz, you know, it was such a highly stressful weekend and all Homework and chores will get themselves done. They always do.

…And they did.

Google is hiring lunar technicians.

Google’s Pigeon Rank technology.

An oldie but a goodie – Search for Weapons of mass destruction on Google.

Any other funnies?

- Learn jazz piano

- Challenge my classical piano

- Become better at popping and locking

- Return to jazz dance (not related to jazz music in any way!)

- Sing in a group

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- Eat more slowly

- Write creatively

- Speak thoughtfully

- Be less soft-hearted

- Listen to people and remember what they say

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- Practice cooking

- Use my Chinese ability

- Pay attention to what I am doing and where I put things

- Keep my space clear and tidy

- Help mum and dad run the house

Two days ago, my brother Jason handed in an application letter for a three month internship at Silicon Valley, USA. That night, he was called up for a phone conference interview with the company in USA for 8:30 AM the next morning. Today, he got a call to say he was chosen!

How exciting! Lightning fast! Wow, I’m blown away. What an opportunity for Jason. He’s been a bit discouraged by his lack of work experience and has felt for a long time that he wasn’t nerdy enough to be a true computer science student. But now he gets to hang out and learn from the nerdiest people in the nerdiest place in the world! Who wouldn’t be thrilled?!

Now, all we have to worry about is the fact he can’t cook or clean for himself. I guess he’ll have to learn very quickly!

Jason, you are way cooler than I am.

I feel quite bad at the moment. At the dance club, I was practicing with some friends. I noticed that the dance teacher Margot was chatting with some committee members. A lot. It seemed like she wasn’t paying attention to her students. I waited but she kept chatting. She’s done this before. So when she was away from the students, I went up to her and said, “You’re not paying attention to your students.”

She turned bright red and snapped at me. She was very angry, said I shouldn’t tell her what to do. I said, “Sorry, I was just worried,” and walked away.

I’ve never criticised her before because I understand that she is a far more experienced teacher than I am. She ought to know what she’s doing. But as a committee member (who is in charge of paying her and looking after the interests of our club), I have the right and responsibility to push her in the right direction when I believe she’s doing something badly. I honestly think it’s unfair of her to neglect paying students and I believe we have lost students in the past for this very reason.

I don’t like making people upset and I’ve probably offended her. I feel bad but I also feel like she’s the one doing the wrong thing.

It’s going to be a stressful week. I predict that our concept report will be about two hundred pages long — and we’re only up to concept stage! There are five people sharing the workload in my group. It’s a good thing we’re all hard working… but I get the feeling that you wouldn’t survive to final year engineering without being hard working.

I think engineering is one of the most demanding university courses. Besides the technical difficulty of the subject matter, the demands it makes on your time and effort are disproportionately greater than the recognition that engineering students get. I have friends who do medicine — that’s probably the one course I’d say students get pushed harder than in engineering.

Still, I have time to get involved in clubs, have a social life and part time jobs. Nothing to complain about. The work is interesting and there is the security of studying a vocationally-oriented degree. There’s no need to feel sorry for engineering students — it’s the generalist degree students that I have the most sympathy for!

“So, you’re studying pure maths/philosophy/history/marketing… What are you going to do with that?”

Poor kids — they must be sick of answering that question!

We just had a one hour black-out. Without electricity, I could do no homework (all my work is on computer). So, I played the piano by candlelight. It was lovely.

Oh, I am so happy, so pleased!

The intervarsity dance competition tonight surpassed anything I have ever imagined. I’ve been working on it for the past two weeks and tonight it all came together. The last time a competition ran between our two universities, we had maybe twenty competitors and it was a quiet night. Tonight, there were more than sixty competitors and all twenty-one events ran with at least two couples competing. Some events had up to fifteen couples! All levels of ballroom, latin, street latin, salsa, rock’n'roll, swing, New Vogue, Argentine Tango were represented.

We even had three HUGE Jack’n'Jill Cha Cha, Mambo and Swing events. J’n'J events are when people are randomly partnered up on the night. I consider it low pressure fun because there’s no routines to learn but understandably, others are terrified of going into competition without preparing.

So happy, so proud.

Highlights of the night

1. Jon and James walking onto the floor for the Bronze Cha Cha. Two boys doing Latin together! Do you know how rare that is??
   
2. Jack’n'Jill Swing with Joel H — My skirt was twirling all over the place. Thank goodness mum made me wear a petticoat.
   
3. Salsa rueda during the social dancing. Rueda is when you dance a circle and swap partners as someone calls out moves. I love it because it looks great and it’s nice just reacting to good leads rather than thinking about moves.

I’m hyper busy. Luckily, I’ve learned the art of delegation and have delegated all my group work away.

I woke up 1.5 hours early today to do homework before my 9 AM class. Somehow though, I lost an hour. Actually, I know why. We ran out of milk so instead of having a quick breakfast of cereal I had to make a toasted sandwich. I’m sure that’s what ate up an hour

I was meant to do a lot of homework today but one of my friends has just been through a shock break up with her boyfriend. She’s quite devastated so I will spend the evening with her. This is why I need an extension on one of my assignments. Of course, I didn’t say that to the lecturer — “I need an extension because my friend needs emotional support this week.” Instead, I gave the plausible (and possibly true) reason that the concept report for my final year design project is due on the same day as my flood analysis and being a girl, I can’t multitask… Yeah, Daniel, I hear ya!

This is what my hydraulics lecturer said today: “I’m not allowed to tell you what’s on the exam. If I was allowed to tell you… Well, I’ll just tell you what I would have told you if I was allowed to tell you.”

HEHEHE

I tried to make a song out of this (guess what tune it was to be) but it was a bit too much effort.

• Ticking things off my ‘to do’ list
  
• Dancing to a good song
  
• Writing in my blog
  
• Social emails
  
• Good conversations
  
• Clever jokes
  
• Stupid jokes
  
• Puns
  
• Intellectual debates
  
• Binding my homework
  
• Hugs
  
• Waking up at 5am
  
• Hot breakfasts
  
• Holiday photos
  
• Giving good presents
  
• Researching decisions
  
• Novels about epics
  
• Karaoke
  
• Adventure computer games
  
• Job interviews
  
• Coffee with friends
  
• Hats
  
• Road trips with friends
  
• Presenting my point of view
  
• Reading menus
  
• Walking