Firstly I would like to wish bon voyage to emma, my sister, who is leaving for a 6 week exchange in France on Thursday (to Montpellier), I hope you have a wonderful time! Emma has set up a blog for her travels at: http://www.walkingbywoods.blogspot.com/ and hopefully she will be a better blogger than me! At the moment I am aiming for one a month lol.

On the weekend I voted for the first time!!!!! It was soo exciting, all that power...mmmm You will have to guess who I voted for in the hall at Reserach Primary, where I proudly handed in my two voting slips, I have been studying the parties this whole election, it has been so interesting, especially all the preference deals. Luckily labor stayed in government, so Sarah can stop worrying haha. The greens didn't get as many seats as I thought they would - damn! Though I think they have two in the upper house so far and maybe one in the lower house - the one little green man looked very lost in the sea of red and blue in parliament. Do you know, I even watched the election night show on the abc - 2 hours of watching all the electorates and Kerry O'Brian and Antony Green (apparently the ricky martin of election coverage). I actually wanted to go into the city and watch them count the votes - it was free! unfortunately no one else shared my enthusiasm... ahhh democracy, I'm not taking you for granted.

I am, however, officially completely sick of shopping, I have been shopping every day for about a week... and I can't cope anymore! This shopping rampage has been mainly due to emma's frantic last minute preparations and though I did score a dress and a some pjs on the way they were not enough to console me for those precious hours frittered away wandering around Myer. I used to hate myer with a vengence when I was little and now I begin to understand why... it's the horrible monotony of the place, the empty aisles of row after row of stuff - with musik playing in the background. It really is quite surreal, and when you emerge after a few hours it is like you are seeing the world for the first time - all that light, that colour, that warmth (myer is always freezing). To make matters worse they keep moving things, not very far, but just enough to leave me completely disorientated and fearing for my sanity. Yesterday it was the book section in Northland myer that suspiciously moved just around the corner, reminding me of the roaming shops in discworld - probably no one will get this reference, but i will persist - these moving sections just make me think of the enormous work that must go into it, all those books have to be picked up and put back in exactly the same relative position on the other corner of the floor. I would love to watch it happening one day, they must be like little ants, forming chains of people carrying books...

Enough of my ranting, tomorrow I will be going to Kennett river again - yay! I wonder if there will be more oc watching than last time - hopefully it will be warmer. I painted my toenails today in anticipation, and I should go and buy some champagne...

As I stated earlier I did buy a dress on the weekend, suprisingly in was from Piccadily Circus - a shop known more for its huge woolen coats than light summer dresses, but none the less it was there. It's red and white spotted, and I'm worrying that it's a bit too much of an afront to feminism with its obvious "I love cooking and cleaning in frilly aprons" aura. Maybe I will wear it and learn kickboxing, just to undermine the gender stereotype.

Exams are finally over, I had a 2 weeks gap between my first ones, french oral and politics and my last one, critical thinking. This last exam was multiple choice! a mulitple choice philosophy exam, what a bizarre idea, though it is more logic, so multiple choice worked quite well. It was all fine until... Question 63 (the second last one) which was: "Was this test... too short, too long, much too long or just right" I chose just right to be on the safe side, I don't want any vindictive philosophy teachers lowering my mark. The last question was for bonus marks and was to either write a limerick about critical thinking or draw a picture - the person writing the exam must have foreseen the fact that it took only an hour to complete in a two hour exam. I wrote a rather bad limerick about modus ponens - a logical argument structure that is: Q, if P then Q, P therefore Q. My limerick went... (ahem)

There once was a p and a q
Who weren't quite sure who was who
Said the q to the p
"Well, as I'm sure you'll agree..
If you are a p I'm a q".

dadaaaa

I drew a picture for added emphasis (and hopefully marks) of a little p and q walking down a path wearing hats. Hmmm. It was really quite an absurd situation; writing a limerick during a critical thinking exam in the middle of the Royal Exhibition Building (I love that place, it makes me feel so noble to be doing an exam there - my table was wonky though, so I had to sit awkwardly with one leg stuck out balancing the table so it didn't crash every time I moved).

I'm currently reading Gould's Book of Fish - a book which is a lot weirder than it looks. I just finished The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard, supposednly an almost perfect novel. Hmm.. it did have very good characters but I think it lost momentum about half way through, though I would still recommend it to anyone (and it's Australian!). I have kept a list of the books I've read this year, for the first time, so I am now up to 40 , my favourites being Schindlers List (Thomas Keneally), Catch 22 (Joseph Heller), Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (R Pirsig), To the Lighthouse (Virginia Woolf), To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee), Oscar and Lucinder (Peter Carey), My Brilliant Career (Miles Franklin), Huis Clos (Jean Paul Sartre), The Facts behind the Helsinki Roccamatios (Yann Martel) and Eucalyptus (Murry Bail). I have still not finished Ulysees! lol













Films I would recommend are Childen of Men, Gilda, La Jetée (a French photomontage film - one of the most beautiful, haunting films I've ever seen - you can find it on google video, and it's only 27 minutes long - though it is in french), The Piano, Mrs Harris and Boys Don't Cry. There are millions of others but unfortunately I have not chosen this year to be the first to write down all the films I have seen. Oh, and WATCH THE WEST WING - you will regret it if you don't (I love u josh, sam, c.j, donna, leo, toby...)

so that's that.

a bientôt