Today was the last session for me with PBLIV. We had a half session to finish out the important points of our case this morning and then headed over to a fish and chips shop close by called A Salt and Battery. Our case this week was Domestic Violence.
The year has been really good and I’m going to miss having these guys in the group. I know whenever you get randomly assigned people you have to work closely with, there’s so much potential for adversity, but I think our group really came together. It’s not that we’re all the same, cause we are definitely different, but things seemed to work. I’ll miss them!
This is a small post about a big (psychological) plus to Canada that came up when Brian and I were talking about going home. I had occasion to look through my old banking records and saw purchases from Tim Horton’s. This is what I saw. And yes, I chose one that was early in the morning on purpose! 😉
Now, that’s a good deal. But here, a plain black, nothing added, tar and water coffee does not go for less than $3 and can go up from there. What is the deal? Anyways, since they’ve got us trapped on this island I suppose they can charge whatever they want and we just pay. It seems the locals have gotten used to it…
Here are my teammates in Sunday night footy. This was just after our last defeat. Theo was pretty tired, he worked really hard.
Thanks to Carol for the photos.
Mozilla Thunderbird Portable is a great invention and I’ve used it for some time, on both Windows and Ubuntu Linux under wine. While it works just fine for email, the whole integration thing was lacking under Ubuntu. The things like opening attachments and clicking links didn’t work under Linux. A small price to pay to have all your mail show up in your inbox, just as you left it, regardless which OS you choose to boot at the time (Especially when I was using POP). But why pay that price if you don’t have to?
I use gmail behind the scenes for my mail, and use the IMAP feature to keep my inbox sync’d. This means that all my mail is there, even if I just use two separate installs of Thunderbird. But it also means you have to re-download messages, and waste twice the disc space, and time, and bandwidth (especially precious if you’re on mobile broadband). Plus, keeping a backup copy is easy, as the files stay in the portable format, just drag and drop the folder to somewhere else.
So this is how I worked it out, many months later than I would have liked. I keep this here in case I need to do it again sometime.
Tech Warning: there is jargon and commands behind this link!
Being here is great, and I am truly loving what is happening down here. It’s an awesome experience and I’m so glad it’s happening… I just wish it didn’t take me away for so long, so far from home. I am looking forward now to going home, and it’s really coming up quickly. That said, I have really missed a big chunk of time when it comes to someone whose whole life is still measured in months. I have two nephews, Sam and Isaac. I’ve never even seen Isaac with my own eyes. I don’t know what he’s like either. I’m looking forward to finding out over Christmas. With Sam I’m a little more familiar and I am sad for not being able to spend time with him this year.
Before I left, I took care of him at my place one afternoon and we played around with the camera. He couldn’t talk at the time, but clearly knew what was going on. I also like to think that at the beginning of the first video he says “Picture” when the camera comes out. Who knows. I do know he remembered being there, even after I was gone. I’m looking forward to talking with him, which will be a totally new experience for me. I watch these videos sometimes when I’m missing him and it never fails to make me smile.
I have recently added a clock on the right side of my page here that shows two date-and-times. It’s pretty obvious what they are. The reason I put this up is because I am acutely aware of this time of my life as a fixed period. There is a start date and an end date to all this, and it’s coming up one second at a time. I have often thought this of many situations I have been in, both good and bad, so I wanted a way to show time slip from one side of the present to the other. A river of time, and me stuck on a bridge spanning it, watching it pass below.
It was apparently also on minds at Cambridge who made this clock. Mind you, mine cost slightly less than their quoted $2 Million pricetag (How the heck does that even happen?). I understand Stephen Hawking presented the clock as part of his theoretical commitment that the forward movement of time is inevitable. I just presented mine myself. I kept that article and a video showing the clock behind this link.
I received a letter from the Australian Red Cross yesterday, letting me know my blood group. I also got a very flashy and stylish donor card. All the kids want one.
I don’t know what blood type they need most, but A+ is one of the more common. It’s one test that I can always count on a good grade anyways… unless I end up like this girl.
Tonight is Sunday night and I’m home to watch another lightning storm, after a hot sunny day. The usual ritual of playing footy way across the river is now over. Last week was the final and in good Gallstones’ style we finished the way we played the whole season. Consistent. It was lots of fun and it felt like we all really put in a good effort. There were a few rule changes that made it a little more fun as well. There were some pictures taken, and I’ll see if I can get a hold of some of them.
All in all I’m happy to have had the fun we did and it was perfect to get out and stretch a little. Next is a month at the desk.
I spent today at the beach, which was pretty great cause it’s starting to get hot enough. It was even a bit too hot. Anyways, most of the time was spent just lying there reading and talking about our exams etc. It was good to get out of the house.
There also was some pretty crazy lightning in the distance, but it didn’t really do much close by. It was hitting pretty fast, but a lot of it was behind the clouds. I took a clip of it and you can see it after the link.
I have been trying out the Mike- and Brian-inspired couch study. It has not been progressing at the rate that is necessary, so it’s back to the desk, and even after just a day, I already feel more productive. It’s only about 5 weeks till the exam, which means there’s no time to mess around. I am pretty apprehensive about the upcoming assessment, which includes an exam on just this half of the year, and then another cumulative exam.
The part that concerns me and has been in the back of my mind since forever it feels like is the ethics essay. There is a section of our program called “Ethics and Professional Practice”. It’s really medical law. Which means Acts, Cases and a whole lot about some chick named Regina.
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