Bloody Lefties

9/30/2004 9:49:28 PM Cool story Hansel
did you watch the Chaser decides?

9/30/2004 9:49:56 PM You can't handle my infinite nature no, i was "doing my essay" and Chris Taylor annoys me

9/30/2004 9:50:03 PM Cool story Hansel heh, fair enough. is he the main host dude?

9/30/2004 9:50:25 PM You can't handle my infinite nature yeah

9/30/2004 9:50:44 PM Cool story Hansel nature it was pretty funny - I'm glad they go after both sides

9/30/2004 9:50:59 PM Cool story Hansel not like the rest of the ABC, which is very onesided

You can't handle my infinite nature Bloody lefties

Cool Story Hansel bloody bearded lefties

9/30/2004 9:52:17 PM Cool story Hansel bloody bearded latte drinking lefties

9/30/2004 9:52:28 PM You can't handle my infinite nature bloody bearded treehugging latte drinking lefties

9/30/2004 9:52:45 PM Cool story Hansel bloody bearded treehugging latte drinking pot smoking lefties

9/30/2004 9:53:11 PM You can't handle my infinite nature bloody bearded treehugging latte drinking pot smoking hemp wearing lefties

9/30/2004 9:53:49 PM Cool story Hansel bloody bearded treehugging latte drinking pot smoking hemp wearing skivvy wearing lefties

9/30/2004 9:54:55 PM You can't handle my infinite nature bloody bearded treehugging latte drinking pot smoking hemp skivvy wearing whale kissing lefties

9/30/2004 9:55:30 PM Cool story Hansel bloody bearded treehugging latte drinking pot smoking hemp skivvy wearing whale kissing french speaking lefties

Guess who?

Survivor/Safran/Stupidity/Slut?

Good bye Dolly, the sheep farmer. I was suprised she got booted considering she was one of the hottest (she looks like Brittney Spears meets Marilyn). I suppose women like to dispose of the competition just as much as men.

The reward challenge required walking along a plank.Too easy? Not when you have to walk side ways holding on to your tribemates face to face. The looks on the guys faces said it all - whose evil scheme to induce simultaneous homophobia and homoerotocism? I needed a shower after that one...icky. Hence the girls won.

I watched John Safran vs God last night. Safran is a funny man, although is supposed consistancies in bagging all religions covers the sacred viel he leaves on secularism. But that's only so far. He might impress me and make fun of himself...

I am such a procrastinator. I'm going to see the disabilities officer tommorow. Hopefully, in Foucaultian style, a label will legitimize my various vices such as laziness, poor spelling, fuzzy thinking and inability to read and understand. Okay, some of them are not vices - they're just... stupidity. But I'm hoping to get a piece of paper that says "Shiloh has a learning disorder. She is stupid. Please give her five hour extensions on her exams and ignore poor spelling, grammer, punctuation, structure, poor referencing, and bad argumentation." Hell, they should just give me my degree right now. ;-)

Mum says that coloured bangles are a signal for prostitution. No, she wasn't making a judgment - she's not the normative type . I'm not sure how universal, archaic or true that symbolism is... What I am sure of is that it adds an extra fifteen minutes onto getting changed time to wriggle sixteen plastic bangles off my wrist. The things I do for fashion.

If Satan were a cat... 

Luke and Aims 

Who dat? 

Bruchetta, babino! 

Who Can? by Shy 

Shy and Zoolander 

Meaningless, meaningless...

I have just returned from paying homage to the god of materialism. After parting with my sacrifice of $42, I was blessed with 24 spagetti flouro bangles, black capri pants and a mini black ra-ra skirt. Together with my red sequined thongs and my hot pink eighties top, they make a complete outfit. Last night in my insomnia I constructed this outfit. Of course when it's actualized in the change rooms, it's never quite the same. It's a little out there - but I think it's up to me to push the fashion boundaries. Talking of which - I saw pink gumboots in Jay Jay's!

Okay, all you guys reading my blog can zone back in now. ;-) The other day when I was sifting through the mass of clean laundry on my sofa I thought "I'm almost near the end of my degree. While I feel a tiny bit more educated, I don't feel I've aquired more knowledge and I certainly don't feel equiped for the "real world"." Maybe the feeling would be different if I was doing a different discipline - you see, philosophers cover the paths others make, only the linger of the subtlties - important subtlties, nevertheless. But maybe all knowledge and disciplines are ultimatly reductionistic - and at the end of it all when you have your 3 phds and have written 10,000 articles every bit of knowledge just seems trivial...

Maybe that's a bit dramatic. What do my dear readers think?

Metaphysics~Marks~Matchmaking

My brother's fiance just had a minor asthma attack. It was a bit scary; Seth, Amy and me standing around the bed unable to do anything to help her. My thoughts were to call the ambulence but her heavy breathing and rasping and wheezing betray her condition - she is sitting on the couch conversing normally with Luke now. Emily is quite amazing - she's a triathelete (as well as a med student) with chronic asthma.

I've been having lots of thoughts lately, which is promising and I think I'm on the verge of discovering a deeper level. And that's exciting. Now I'll have to do something intellectually stimulating to cogeal my thoughts. Like write my freaking Hinduism vs Protesant Christianity essay. Actually, it's a "non-normative" "comparitive" essay for philosophy, but if I present the religions as "neutrally" as possible (har har), the truth will speak for itself.

In other news I recieved 78% for my philosphy of biology essay. I don't think Richard (no link for Richard, his page is very boring) wanted to give me an HD and 79% is just bastardly, so I got an annoying 78%. Winge Winge Winge... Actually, it doesn't matter too much, it's more annoying when you get 78 as your overall mark for a unit (which happened to me last semester) because on your academic record that's just as much a Distinction as 70, so why put in the extra effort for no reward?

Thankfully yesterday was balmy because it was Alex and Shell's en-gag-a-ment partay. We played Vikings (aka Battle Scrabble) and Ultimate Frisbee down at Marrieville Esplanage. Good fun. Also, my match-making "skills" are bearing fruit...

Please excuse my non-deliverence of "metaphysics" as the title promised. I just needed a word starting with M so that the title sounded cool and "metaphysics" was close enough.

In the Ivory Tower

Today I passed Sonam the Resident Buddihist Monk ( http://fcms.its.utas.edu.au/arts/philosophy/pagedetails.asp?lpersonId=2144) on my way into the library when I was supposed to be in the class he is the tutor for. That's probably the first time I've been caught bludging. I smiled and said hello and he smiled cautiously in reply. Either the smile meant "Aren't you supposed to be in class?" or "I have no idea who you are, but I'm a nice Buddhist so I'll not embaress you." I'm hoping the latter and I'm banking on the fact that he's Tibetian and Anglos probably all look the same to him. Or I could just be racist and am spouting falsehoods. Am I?

I got 16/20 for my latest Logic take-home exam. I think that's pretty good for a subject I don't understand. I think my lecturer ( http://fcms.its.utas.edu.au/arts/philosophy/pagedetails.asp?lpersonId=2134) was pretty merciful though. And ultimatly the credit goes t0 God. :-) I understand how to do truth trees to find validity, and I understand the reasons as to why different logics must be constructed. Where I'm a dumbo-brain is where the two intersect. If I could explain that further, I'd have understood it!

Tonight's the Night

Boom di di bom bom eeeeeoooooooh!

Opens with Jeff strolling the rim of an active volcano. Reminds us that Jeff's the real star of the show. The contestants arrive at the island in a First-Fleet ship and the tribespeople paddle out on rafts, in costume. The white, clean Americans look suprised. Jeff reminds them that they're just visitors and he says a "real" chieftan will take them through an initiation ritual. After an akward confrontation on the beach, contestants are lead into a faux tribal village with faux tribals in faux tribal costume. The women are hearded off to one side and the men are given special seats and some special drink (although it looked pretty heanous to me). They get war paint (pig's blood - it gets slaughtered in thier presence) while the women watch on. The women are pissed, because, oh the irony, they impose thier feminist assumptions on the tribe's culture. You feminist cultral imperialists, you! ;-)

The "real" chieftan gives the guys a rock and Jeff explains that the guys have to climb a pole covered in pig fat to get the rock. If the guys fail to get the rock, the girls get the rock. Why do they want the rock? It has spiritual powers that will make the owners win. Like the immunity idol, only much less effective. The best looking guy on the guy's tribe, Brady (who is an FBI agent), climbs the pole, no problem.It must have been something he learnt at FBI school.

Now they go off to find their beaches in the pouring rain and dark. As usual, the girls bitch and whine and be dysfunctional and as usual, the guys seem much more cohesive and well adjusted. The tribes have thier usual problems of being unable to make fire and thus being unable to purify the water. The younger women sit around and talk about themselves while the older women make the shelter, which was to expected. Similar divisions form at the guy's beach, but the younger men seem to help out more - lifting stuff and building the shelter. They know that it makes them look more buff and sexy. Surivor feeds itself, you know.

Chad, this beefy guy who looks like Tom Cloudy, zips off the bottom of one of his cargo legs to reveal to his fellow tribe mates - a prosthetic leg. He said he wanted to wait until he'd showed off his physical prowess before revealing his "handicap". What a dude. He aced the blancing beam to boot.

Unfortunatly the girls won the immunity and the flint. So far, they have not impressed me and all I've seen of them is bunch of long tanned legs and big breasts going "Eeeeee!" Okay, so the editors are mainly to blame for this, but the world of Survivor is not anything above and beyond what is presented to me in a polished, edited form. So all my conclusions and judgements will be based on what I see. They are judgments about the show and the show is just what is presented to the viewer. At least that's my view anyway.

Unfair?

Please excuse the literary mess that was my last post. Too many ideas, too late at night. Please also excuse my bad spelling in general. I'm aware that it makes me look like an uneducated pleb, but please put that aside when you read my posts, dear reader.

I work hard to make my hair look like I just woke up. I envy people whose hair is naturally like that.

Here's a philosophy that most people regard as quite sensible (I think, I haven't done any interviews...): Whatever goal you have, your modus operandi must include solutions to all the possibilities that might thwart the achievement of your goal.

Apply this to the purchase of a car. The cost of the $2000 hatchback on the side of the road isn't $2000, but $2000+the cost of fixing the X + the cost of any damages that you may incur in driving the vehcile, including future accidents. Most would agree that while you don't know what the future will hold, you have to factor the cost of potential damages into the car price. It's "rational" to do so.

Let us now take another application of the philosophy. A little more controversial. When you're calculating travel time, you should factor in as many possible hindrances. When you arive at work and you tell your boss that you were stuck behind a granny so that your tardiness wasn't your fault, your boss might say "You know that Sunday brings out the slow drivers. You should have thought of that and left earlier."

Here's another application of the philosophy and it's much more controversial: Remember that marathon runner in the Athens Olympics who got shoved by a psycho ex-priest and so finnished third, not first? We all said "The poor chap" and rightly so. But perhaps we shouldn't say that it was unfair that he finished third (I'm aware I'm saying something unpopular here) because when he was training he should have taken into account the possibility that some psycho ex-priest might jump out of the crowds and push him off the track, thus sinking his chances of coming first in the race. You could say "It was fair that he came third because of his negligence in keeping an eye out for psycho ex-priests." Harsh, I know. Incidently, the first-place jeapordizer was a repeat offender.

How about this incident: you're careering off a cliff with a car load of non-Christians. Will you choose this moment to plead and beg that they repent? Of course you would. But there is always the possibility such events occur and indeed they do. So why aren't we pleading and begging with our friends now?

Bangs/Wind/Poverty/Magic

My new haircut has resulted in bangs, which I haven't had in about ten years. They're great because they cover a multitude of sins, including pimples and lobotomy scars.

When I got home from work today, it was insanely windy. So I ran outside and flayed my harms and jumped around like a goblin for the Labyrinth. Each time I was off the ground I shouted "Eeeee!" into the wind. I did this for about five minutes. It's highly theraputic. I quite reccomend it. I just wish I had a jumping buddy. I ran inside and mum said "Wind has a strange effect on animals and children."

I watched Global Village. They interviewed a family in Brazil. The wife was a washerwoman and her husband was unemployed. They had seven kids, plus illegitimate grandchildren. There was about one bed in the house, even though they had things like a television and stereo. While the house was tiny and run-down and the kitchen dingy and the ceiling was lined with plastic sheeting to catch leaks, I was impressed with the cleanliness of the bathroom and the fine food the husband cooked up. The wife didn't like her work because it was too hard and the family earned only enough to cover food and rent and had no money to save. Some of the older children had aspirations like going to university, becoming doctors, owning houses but they had to settle for ironing clothes and teaching Capoeira. It sounds like a cliche, but despite these people being dissatisfied with thier life, they seemed genuinely optimistic - most of them had attitudes seldom found among the pampered people I know - including myself. I was "amused" when the husband and wife were watching television and the wife said she liked to watch her soaps, but didn't like to watch sad things, like "droughts in Ethiopia" - as if she was counting her blessings. I like to watch programs that genuinely makes me assess my situation. How much worth is a university degree and a comfortable lifestyle if I can live a fulfilling life without them, as is shown by these people's life?

I just watched The Missing. I think I liked it, but I'm still deciding. It's set in New Mexico desert in 1885. Cate Blanchet's acting is to her credit. And she is also very beautiful. It must be the cheekbones. Anyhow, the movie is quite gruesome and has witchcraft elements. I'm still trying to figure out were magic and witchcraft fit into the Biblical worldview. So, I intend to check up on what the Bible has to say about the matter.

When I was a child I had an even more active imagination than I do now, and in some sense I kind of believed in some magical elements. (But I also believed in a non-modern sense that Narnia was real and I held out hope that I would accidently walk into a wormhole or be taken off by a pegasus at night.) At some point in my life I stopped entertaining the possibility of the existance of such things and worlds and took on the modern worldview were science rules out the possibility of things such as magic. But I turned again and now I hold a Biblical worldview. Perhaps people can manipulate the world through magic and can do so with the help of evil spirits. But to what end? To disobey G0d and run life thier own way, I suppose. But what about those who use magic for good? But I'm not even sure what magic is.

I'll also add that the movie is feminist. All the women are strong characters and the men are cowards. The women survive (since they did no wronng) and the men die.

What are people's thoughts about the whole magic thing?

You make me want to clean my room

No, the title has no relation to anything. It's just a catchy tune.

The linky is to a picture of the car I dreamed about. http://www.stuphthis.com/forums/thread.php?thread_id=1344

I like cracking walnuts. It's like cracking open a little skull and eating the brains. Only it's a creature that has two brains and no body. Maybe it's the solution to mind-body dualism.

The other day in a philosophy tute we were discussing "Are species real?" I said "This is kinda random, but I was reading in an animal book about the Hyrax, a small rodent-like creature whose closest relative is the elephant." My tutor took it well and we discussed it for a bit (it is related). Then this other girl says "I had this dream last night that a rat was chasing my cat and it was scared it was going to eat my cat cos it was really big... bla bla..." Everyone laughed nervously, but I'm sure she was taking the piss - as if my comment was totally unrelated. Maybe I'm just parinoid.

Getting Better

Thanks for the encouragments faithful blog-commenters. :)

Last night Bible Study was encouraging. We wrapped up our study on Leviticus and thought of questions to ask in a Vox Pop for Togatus. Emma P. is a writer for Togatus (the uni-rag, but Emma's well written articles lift the profile) and the topic this month is "Good and Evil." Praise God for an evangelistic oppurtunity. :) We'll ask questions like "How do you decide what is good and what is evil?" "Does good and evil change over time?" "On scale of 1 to 10 rate how good/evil you think you are." Please pray that non-akward evangelistic conversations will come out of this.

I'm a little animal crawling away into a hole and dying

I had a hair cut today. Not entirely happy with it but I suppose it will grow on me.

Today I felt like such a pathetic Christian. Philosophy tutorials are scary. I am also scared of sounding too harsh whenever I present an opinion. I also find myself being to harsh or insensitive in interactions that I immediatly regret it afterwards... By interactions I mean conversations in general including pathetic attempts at evangelizing. I guess I'm just too concerned with what people think of me. I want to be "Super-Evangelist" the super-sensitive, super-godly, super holy, super bold, super-smart, super-trendy, super-pretty, super-helpful, super-articulate super girl who is in control of all social situations, doesn't offend, speaks up in tutorials and explains the gospel clearly, correctly and politely every time. But this just isn't the right attitude. Firstly, God is in control of social situations, not me. Secondly, God can use failers like me. Thirdly, me wanting to be a super-hero is just an attempt at futile self improvement which is the very thing Jesus saves us from. Fourthly, if I did become this Super Evangelist, I'm sure I'd just end up falling away in my own arrogance and self assurance.

At the same time, however, that I would like to become a better evangelist! And I need to read the Bible more.

Sorry folks if you wanted to read this for happy thoughts and just got a dose of Puddleglum. So, I'll give you a hopeful parting message: God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, so that whoever believes in him may not die but have eternal life. Because ultimatly, that's what gives us hope. I just wish more people could get hope from it. It makes angry that people reject God, but really it should break my heart.

Dreams/Fears/Social Norms

Blogspot is fat. A couple of days ago I did an insightful awesome post about the pool and swimming and finishing an essay and other crap and stupid blogspot ate it. This how long it's taken me to recover. ;-)

Anyhow, I've been having wierd dreams. The night before last there was a tsaunami and a kissing competition. I wasn't involved, I was watching... The guy was about to get disqualified because he was too camp, but then the couple's skin started to burst at the seams. Last night I had an ace soft-top olde two-seater car . It was sooo cool. I was driving to work and Maz/Rita hailed me for a lift from Meredith's Fruit Stand. As I was putting Rita's luggage in the boot (she had a baby too), this cyclist guy from one of my classes wanted a lift too. "Where should I put your bike?" I asked, "Can you just hold it?" Only as I was waking up did I realise the bad seat to person ratio I would have created. I suppose the cyclist guy could have sat on Rita's lap, with the bike and the baby...

I'm twenty one years old and I have this pseudo-fear that when I stand facing my bed as I'm putting on my pj's some hands will reach out from under my bed and grab my ankles and drag me under. At this similar time of night I'm also a little bit afraid of my reflection (yeah, I know, ha ha), that it will emerge from mirror-land and do something heinous to me. All this has given me fodder for a horror flick. :-)

I was going to go on a bike ride with Dan and Dave today... but Dave wanted to sleep in, Dan rang me on my mobile when I was still driving my ace soft-top olde two-seater car and he said "Maybe I'll go back to bed too." One wonders how anything gets done, how the infrastructure is sustained, how the milk gets delivered... In my semi-sleep state I said to Dan "Thanks for calling me" or something like that and he said "Bye." I didn't mean that to be a conversation terminating phrase, but he must be socialized to interpret it like that (or he just didn't want to talk to me anymore ;-)). But then, upon reflection, I realised that I often interpret it like that...

I have bucket loads of work to do and my hair is all greasy so that I look like Franka Potente.

Cestpool/Grogclass

After I finished my monster essay I went to the pool to release it. The pool was busy tonight, so I think there was more than my essay released in that pool... heinous. The pool is a funny place. Wrinkly old men with pot- bellies in speedos. Young hairy men with pot-bellies in speedos. Fat ladies in one-pieces slowly doggy paddling down the pool. But I'm not dissing her. I doggy paddle and I'm not a waif. I also watch people in the gym on the walkers, who are probably watching me too. The gym is good if you're doing strength training and lifting weights and the like - but if you want to walk, who don't you just get a pedometer and go along the bike track? It'd certainly be more exciting.

On monday night I had to go to this "responsible serving" grog (I can't spell the a word) course that went for five freaking hours. I have concluded that any talk that is not related to either Christianity or uni will be as boring as hell. And I mean that literally. The guy who runs the course just "loves the sound of his own voice" (and I mean that literally too) and I don't say that very often about people. He said that when he started his first bar job the boss sat him down before work and told him [the contents of the course] in three quaters of an hour. Oh why, oh why didn't he be so kind as to "pass it forward"? At one point he was talking about taking steps to avoid comprimising situations. He had a habit of using people in his "audiance" as illustrations. He points to a blonde girl, "Would you keep topping up a drunk's glass so that he and sixteen of his mates can have thier wicked way with this girl?"... They are some things you just don't do or say...

My Brownies are better than Rockerfella's

Man! Yet another a glorious day! Praise God. No clouds. No breeze. Mild. Reminds me of summer. Camping trips to the white sand and blue green waters. Hopping over granite rocks in the beating sun. Lying in the button grass with the gang and spotting passing ships on the horizon while someone reads aloud. The smell of burning gum leaves, chargrilled steaks and saline air. The screetch of gulls and the wispering surf. Sun tans and tan lines and bikini tops and sand in boardies. Lemon sorbet and home made ice cream and raspberries. Body surfing and swimming against the current in ice cold waters in the hot sun. Ahhhh.

And I still haven't finished my stupid essay. I'll write a bit and then realise I need qualify and define and defend what I've just written and then I realise that I need to further define and qualify my defense, ad infinitum. What a silly business writing an essay is. It's rather like voting in the elections. No one has any idea, really, we're all just donkey voters in the end. (Having written that, I just realised how abstract the simularity between writing an essay and voting is. If you get what I mean, you must read my mind and we should get married. ;))