Phwoar. What a cool couple of days. Let’s start with friday:

I had my last methods tutorial class. Then i went to Frankston, and met up with some friends there. Then later on I went to a party with some more friends from my old school, in Chelsea. I think I was very well behaved, if a little crazy and silly. Heheheh.

Saturday. I woke up sans hangover (yay). Alas only 5 hours of sleep or so. But i was feeling pretty sweet. We all watched some disney movies — the Little Mermaid and Mulan. Sounds crazy I know.

Then it was off back to Melbourne, a surprisingly fast train ride (took 1.5 hours from Chelsea to Northcote) considering its ~45 km away. And on public transport. Then I went to work. It went fast, since i was more tired than usual, and a little spaced out.

Sunday. Much more tired. Went to Chinese New Years celebrations in the city. There was lots of drangons, including a really long one. The crackers were very noisy. Luckily i had a good viewing platform — on top floor of a carpark. I went to work in the afternoon.

All in all, a fantastic few days.

This weekend has been terrible weather wise. It was 38C+ on Saturday, and 42C+ today. That made work quite the pain in the behind, since nobody wants to actually do anything when it’s above 35. But the good thing was that there was less people about. Yay. (Sorry to all you Coles supermarket customers).

I wonder how the soldiers in Iraq are coping, with their armour, weapons and uniform? It must suck. And the physical effects of continued sun over-exposure? Great stuff.

Well, there is a cool change. The house has been fully opened, and things are nicer now. Better stop now, this weather thing is probably boring.

Lets start with an interesting quote:

To me style is just the outside of content, and content the inside of
style, like the outside and the inside of the human body. Both go together, they can’t be separated. — Jean-Luc Godard

Style is important, but so is content. Too many people seem to think that the
former can make up for the latter.

That said, I plan on rolling out a new style soon enough, using CSS and the like. Make sure you use Firefox or another friendly browser.

Came home today. Discovered that something was causing a short. Half a frustrating hour later, the fridge was identified as the culprit.

My house has the most brain-dead electrical setup. Most power sockets are on 1 circuit. There is a mix of what I’ll call “volatile” devices such as toaster, jug, microwave as well as “non-volatile” eg: computers, lamps, etc, etc . all together! In an ideal world, the separate volatilities would be separatate. I suppose a kludge would be to put surge protectors in front of the volatile stuff. Hmmm…

May the 20 year old fridge RIP.

Last night on TV, I watched the Victorian State Government’s advertising for public schools with a sense of irony. Has things come to such that schooling is yet another “service” that must compete on the market? Believe it or not, but the idea was raised. It seems to be this case already for Universities, who rely significantly on full fee paying students (from here and abroad) for their income. Private Schools are another example, with scholarships only being awarded with the ulterior motive of attracting good students to improving their image.

Back to the State Schools. While the campaign may have meant to inform parents on new features of State Schools such as “reports that are easier to understand”, it’s a little laughable. It came across as more of a sales pitch. (Although the old reports with jargon-that-makes-education-seem-more-complex-than-it-is often confused parents and students alike).

Let’s look at Victoria’s schools on the basis of cost and availability. There are:

• State Schools which are free and available to all (in theory).
• Selective Entry State Schools such as Melbourne High, Macrob and to a lesser extent University High and Balwyn High.
• Private schools which charge, unless the student is on a bursary or scholarship. One requires money, or passing a scholarship exam.
• Catholic schools which charge less. They are quite affordable.
• Alternative schools which charge (I’m not too sure how much).

I shall stop here. Blogs aren’t really definitive sources. It’s all opinion. But so are most things (even things which purport to be unopinionated, like Fox News and the Herald Sun).