Requests

#1 ~My thesis~ (thank you Craig)

I had a meet with Barry Taylor, my supervisor, on Wednesday. While he is clearly a good philosopher, he has good social skills. He asked me how I liked Melbourne and how I was settling in. He gave me some deadlines (for my own good!) - I must have read around and located my topic by May 30th. By July 24th, I should have written 2/3 of my draft. I will probably writting on someone like McDowell who wrote on Kripke who famously wrote on Wittgenstien.

I'm a bit scared. I do feel I am tackling something out of my depth, but Barry has recognised this and said I only have to take one thread and pound that (oops, mixed metaphor). At this stage, I can't give be more specific about my topic. Maybe the deconstruction of meaning in relation to attributing sensations to other minds. Sounds good, eh? What that topic really says I only know as much as you do. ;-) In regards to methodology, I will probably end up adjudicating a debate between the big names, since so much has been written on Kripke's controversial book.

On a side note, there's this kind of family tree of philosophers. Barry was taught by people who were taught by people who were taught by the W man himself. I wonder if you took every academic across every university and discovered that there was this freaky 6-degrees of seperation thing between any given academic and Hegel or something like that...

#2 ~My Art~ (thank you Kara)

I don't write about this much because it inhabits a different cogantive world to this realm. I'm holding a pen and there's legal paper close by. "Draw a head which is actually a balloon held by a headless creature with wings and wheels instead of legs" is not the command which pops into my head. In fact, there's no explicit command. The verbal and meta-verbal are bypassed.

I draw in lectures. I draw in Church. I draw on my skin. If I have a pen, I draw. I'm unstoppable - like that girl who wore the red shoes and couldn't stop dancing so they had to cut her feet off. But please don't cut my hands off!

#3 ~Food and Housekeeping~ (thank you Amy)

Flavour-of-the-Month is sushi. By "sushi" I mean smoked salmon California rolls. Not all hand-rolls are created equally, though. Box Hill and Forrest Hill chase are cheap and there's more filling than rice. Some places in the city and Uni rip you off - you pay 80cents more and they pad it out with too much rice. Also, sometimes the vendors are sneaky and put more salmon at the exposed end. Not much you can do about that...

I'm also digging spinach and cheese in pastry or pide bread. The best place for this is Sydney Road, Brunswick. Cheap and so delicious.

Melbourne is the food city, but you still have to be discerning about quality. I still haven't found a good gelati place in the city.

Also, you can desire and obsess about an exact food item and search the kingdom for it. I was totally craving nuts in ice cream and when I finally got it, it was such a non-event. You'd think I'd have learnt by now, but it still suprises me that the expectation is always greater than the prize.

We have a dishwasher (no, not one of the housemates) which helps. Housekeeping is much easier than anticipated. This is probably the case, because at some stage I might discover that I've been neglecting the bathroom or I'll discover something else festering away somewhere...

#4 ~Museums~ (thank you David)

When I was a little girl, instead of loving dolls and dresses and make-up and princesses, I was obsessed with, in phases, dinosaurs & prehistory and astronomy. Once, I even played museums. I curated a museum in my room, using all my model dinosaurs and "fact"books. Yes, I was a strange child. I would have been embarressed by this section of my biography in my teens, but now I'm kind of proud of it. Wierd, yes.

Anyway, when I was 12, my dad took my brothers and me to USA. One thing which especially lodged in my memory was the Natural History Museum in Chicago. I'm not sure if it's just because I was 12, but it really is a good museum - variety, clear explanations, cool displays, interactive stuff. Ten years ago, they had a display with a giant chair and the following fact, "if you double your size, you will multiply your weight by eight times." I think it inferred that you wouldn't be able to stand due to the imbablance of weight to bone cross section ratio. I guess this sort of thing appealed to me because I was perhaps beginning to think about the discrepancy between appearance and reality. I was also an intensely curious child - and a museum is a kingdom of information.

Okay, now we've got all the Fruedian rubbish out of the way, why do I really like museums? I'm the sort of person who reads Melways for fun. A museum is also a lot like a documentary (I like the good ones), but interactive and much cooler.

That said, a museum can be done really badly, as I discovered in Melbourne. Information can be narrated coherently, relevantly and interestingly. It can also be done like a dull textbook. Or worse still, like a school project. Melbourne was the third option. No premptive answers to the questions naturally arising.

#5 ~Okay...Angus~

Hmmm. Boring! ;-)

...ahem...

Angus currently resides in a town (they call it a city which is just silly, though if I call it that it will make Angus' job look more prestigious ;-)) on the North Coast of Tasmania. He's reporting for the "city"'s local newspaper. I like to imagine that he's like Glass, sitting in the pitching room, bluffing his way to fame. Although, of course, I would hope that Angus would not do such a thing. He's pretty good at spinning *true* yarns - he has no need for falsity.

Is this the place to gush about Angus? I feel like I'm writing on those bits of paper they passed around at kids camps were you had to write one nice thing about the person next to you - and it was pretty sad when you had one kid sitting there scratching his head (and not writting) or one kid antisocially saying "I don't know what to write!" Of course, I do know what to write, but I'm just not sure Angus' ego can handle it. ;-)

#6 ~What I thought of Franklin Graham~

I've kind of run out of energy right now...

Audience Participation

There are many, many things I could blog about right now. However, I don't want to bore you, dear Reader. You know when a comedy act or a rapping competitor hasn't prepared properly, so they try to look proffesional by getting the crowd to call out suggestions... well, I'm going to do just that, only I have no desire to look proffesional. So, hit me. What do *you* want to read about?

Licorice Allsorts

~The Gospel According to Bruce Langtry~

(It’s important that you know that Bruce is a theist.)

-Not committed to gendering God. He gives no explanation as to why he is agnostic about God’s gender.

-The context for the following argument is a premise of the argument that some evils can be justified if the victim is compensated. Such an argument is “needed” since one of the central issues is about whether God is morally justified in doing evil. Bruce’s contention is that children who suffer greatly in this life will be compensated in the afterlife.

Bruce’s delivery misleads. They say he is dry, but I’m not sure what that means. I do know that he fails to put emphasis on conclusions and when he does get “excited” it may not be about the important parts of an argument. He is rigorous, which is good, but so much so that he gets caught up in threads of justifying premises and providing counterexamples without signposting relevance. It is in these tangents were he lays his cards on the table, but in such a way that debate is not easily entered into. Philosophers in many guises are foxes.

As Bruce shares more tidbits from his belief system, I will pass them on.

***

I’ll share more about Festival Victoria after tonight, since at least one of my readers has not yet been and I wouldn’t want to drop any spoilers.

***

~Catagory: Perpetual Student~

Bachelor of Theology (with Hons)
Bachelor of Architecture with majors in Art History (with Hons)
Graduate Diploma of Graphic Arts
Masters in Muesum Studies
Doctrate in Philosophy

That would take me 14 years. At 36 years old, I would enter the workforce. A more likely scenario would be a mental institute, methinks.

Sex Lies

mX is the free rag we read on the Met, so that we don't have to make akward eye contact with the passenger sitting across from us. (Suprisingly, it's a pretty good read and it usually has a good sense of self-stupidity and humour.) In the section mXBlokes, there's an article about why men lie. Thier lies include "I can fix it" and "I don't want to have sex unless you want to" and "I was not looking at her boobs". The explanations under each lie are just spurious excuses of course and do not justify the false witness (of course), but amusing anyhow. Another lie is "I'm the best, baby". Now, to me, this doesn't really qualify as lie, since a lie usually implies deception. ;-) The justification for such hyperbole (if you could even call it that) is "to make her glad she's with him...He's just making sure she never forgets what a superlative bloke she has chosen."

Hello! Do men intentionally insult a woman's intelligence? Do you think she needs to be *told* how great he is? Hath a woman not eyes? And it's self defeating, really, because if it's not obvious through his conduct that he's great, then he must not be great at all. Hence the lie.

But anyway, I'm just venting. My male readership aren't that kind of guy.

I walked to the Chemist and bought some big silver hoop earings. You can't see them, so I have to tell you that they are very cool. However, I can only wear one. When I got home I took my earings out and one lobe is swollen and hard and oozing. Wasn't sure what to do, so I called mum. Dear reader, "calling mum" is the best action to take in any situation.

I also discovered why women wear earings. This too is an act of deception, only the visual lies women tell through clothing, jewllery, make-up and hair are actually effective. Earings draw attention to the jawline, making it more defined (currently, my defined jawline is getting subsumed by my swollen glands due to ear infection. I'd go to the doctor but I'm too pov). Also, the end of the ear with earing attached is about level with the lips and so the earing draws the eyes across. I could tell you all the other trade secrets, but I'm sure you'd rather not know.

Welcome to the Real World

I hope you like the new template. I think it's rather apt, don't you?

A short while ago, Shaun and JTD were having a small debate in the comment section of my entry on "Hedonism and Utility" on theology and "real word meaning". I'm going to attempt to address the latter part of the debate.

/In the following paragraphs, I grossly misrepresent him, says Shaun/

I infer from Shaun's claims that we ought to use "real world meanings" when answering questions such as the ones I posed at the end of that entry: "I wonder, are many of us academic types Theology Hedonists? If so, is this neccessarily a bad thing?" By extension, I believe Shaun thinks that we ought to abandon the conventional meaning of "theology" to such an extent that we reject it in favour of "story". I could be totally straw-manning you here, Shaun, so please jump on me if I am. (Perhaps I am, and you are actually talking about a personal preference, not a proposed universal shift. Even so, if this is what you are doing, implicitly, on your own argument (which I will look at later on) this semantic "revolution" ought to be applied generally).

I am not exactly sure what the "real world meaning" of theology is. So, I'm not sure that I want abandon the historic defintion of "the study of God".

I'm not exactly sure what "real world meaning" is. I'm not being anal for the sake of it. It's just that such a term is so theory laden. It smells of an academia-laity distinction or something else I can't quite locate. It reminds me of the phrase people sometimes say to me "What purpose does philosophy have in the real world?" (verb/punctuation disagreement intentional) or "When you get out into the real world...". The obvious response is that the university *is* part of the real world. In the same way, the way my classmates and lectureres and peers use words do constitute the "real world meaning", by necessity. And yes, most of them by habit or conscious effort, use "dictionary definitions" because of words' elegance and compound qualities. This subset of the "real world", as part of thier education, have eliminated sloppy word usage from their vocabs.

I think part of the purpose of education is to make sharp the concepts that we denote words with (this *is* compatiable with the arbitiry nature of language). Let us grant for a moment Shaun's "real world meaning" of "theology": "a fairly specific manner of learning about God". I can only make a conjecture here. I think that phrase means something like "dry" or a "set of propositions" or something that only a certain, small group of like-minded people can engage in. I hope by my own vagueness I have shown the inadequacy of such a "real world meaning".

Socrate's Sword

The Socratic Method is oft championed as the soft, sensitive way to handle those who disagree with you.

People use it because they think it makes them look like a good listener, eager to come to mutual understanding.

It is especially promoted in Christian circles as non-dogmatic way to engage in apologetics.

However, I contend that the Socratic Method is the most stealthiest, dogmatic and absolutist arguing technique of them all.

Observe A demolish B:

B I don’t like Christianity. It’s so dogmatic.

A So you don’t like dogma?

B Of course not! I prefer to think for myself.

A What things have you thought for yourself?

B I don’t believe in God.

A Oh! So you have beliefs?

B No. I just said I don’t believe in God.

A How would you define dogma?

B Unverified beliefs. Things you just accept without thinking them through or checking to see if they’re true.

A Is there a pig in the bathroom?

B Err, no.

A Have you checked?

B Last time I looked, there was no pig. So I infer that now, there is no pig.

A If we were to be consistently sceptical, there remains the possibility that there is a pig in the bathroom. Do you agree?

B I concede. But I am not usually so sceptical in everyday life. I believe there is no pig, based on past instances of non-appearance of pigs.

A Have you changed your mind about not having beliefs then?

B No. I have beliefs - I just don’t like accepting things that cannot be proved.

A Can you prove that there is no pig in the bathroom, without a posterori verification?

B No.

A So you accept dogma about the pig in the bathroom?

Another route could have been:

B I don’t like dogma.

A So you have no beliefs then?

You dear reader, can fill in the rest.

As you can see, the Method is used show the sloppiness and falsity of one’s opponent’s view, whilst showing off the truth and superiority of one’s own view.

I Anti-Heart Heat

The air temperature of the last few days has been over 30 degrees, and I am relieved beyond imagine that this afternoon we expect a cool change. This is not an unconventional preference cultivated for the sake of unconventionality. Heat "is the grit in the cogs of" my head. It hampers all my favourite activities: running, baking, sleeping, reading and thinking.

Yesterday, there was some relief, thankfully. In the afternoon Tad, Manny and I went to St Kilda Beach. This was the first time for me and I was impressed - not by the beach (Tasmanian Beaches ownz Victorian Beaches) - but by the atmosphere - both in the literal and non-literal sense. The face of Lunar Park greets you as you step off the tram (On the new trams, a recorded woman's voice announces stuff. Tad is in love with this voice). Lunar Park is only $23 for the whole day. That will go on my list of activities to do with my new Melbourne friends.

The trio (we must have looked quite funny - one very tall guy, one quite short guy and a girl) walked down the pier, ate grapes and jelly beans and had a great time joking and laughing and talking about anything. Tad and Manny made me feel welcome, and I felt at ease with them.

Earlier on Sunday, I went to Donvale Pressy with John. Donvale Pressy is about an hour's walk from my place, so its do-able if I so choose to go there. It is held in an abbreviated community centre type building. The congregation is inter-demographic, and it is mainly white with a few Asians and Indians. The service was familiar, although I was worried that they didn't pray until just before the sermon. The talk was on Acts 27, where Paul gets bitten by a viper. The passage was difficult, but I still think that the preacher could have done a better sermon. Afterwards, I spoke to Catherine and Noel Carpenter (ex-pats too), who are lovely. No one else spoke to me, but was probably because either 1) Noel and Catherine were talking to me or 2) I look scary.

Fast-Forward to after the beach. It was about 4:40pm and the trio broke up. I was in the city waiting for Scots@seven to commence ("John, what time does Scots at Seven start?"), so I went down to the swanky tiolets in QV and discovered that I was sunburnt. Thankfully not on my face, except for my chin. I have a little chin, so I'm suprised it got burnt. After eating yummy, cheap sushi rolls, I walked down Collins Street. I started to feel very strange - as if I was about to faint. I wondered briefly if I was dying and this is what it feels like to die. It would have been a dramatic place to die - clinging onto the wrought-iron fence of the Gothic Scots Cathedral. Instead, I sat for a bit, admired the fine architecture of Collins Street and then searched for an atm.

On my mini-mission a young man, shabbily dressed, asked me for money for pizza. I gave him, what I was soon to find out, my last dollar. "Insufficient funds" the atm told me. So I sat in McDonalds (they have eftpos), drank an orange juice and read my reader for "Rationality". Festy, but I was beyond caring.

Scots@Seven: Before the service started, no one spoke to me. I eavesdropped on the conversation in front of me. A visiting man from Italy was telling a regular that his Mission was to unite the Church before Christ returns. It wasn't clear if he meant unification in an eccenumical sense or unifcation of doctrine. The young man he was speaking to was being orthodox (I think) and replying that due to the heart of man, such unification won't occur *until* Christ returns, and it's not really our place to bring it about. However, I guess it all just depends on how you define unification, and the conversation made this ambigious.

Anyhow, the service was good. There was good prayer (early on), the Bible was read, the talk was good and the hymns sung were beautiful. Afterwards, people were friendly. The congregation is mainly young people, plus a few old blokes (One of them being either a 1) man in a floral dress or 2) woman with a full-on beard). Two friendly girls, Suzanne and Jean, were keen to have me involved in the church if I chose to go there. And there was lots of food afterwards. I think I'll seriously consider making it my church. And not just because of the food.

Lastly, I saw Talented Mr Ripley on Saturday. I seem to recall that in the past some people have put it on their favourite movie list. If this is true, these people either 1) do not understand movies or 2) appreciate gratuitous depravity.

That's all, dear reader.

Musings on the Metro

Yesterday I met my supervisor. He wears a baret, but otherwise he's normal! Unless I'm just so used to talking to Mad Hatters.

I missed out on having coffee with Jason and Benji today. A pity.

I've stopped couple watching because it was getting boring.

Dave Walter gave a ripper talk on Collosians at Christian Union. It's wierd, CU is mainly girls. I wonder, are guys not interested in God? Or are they slack? (obviously not an exclusive "or").

As I was walking down Peel Street to Central station, I observed that Melbourne is shrinking before my eyes. It feels like a smaller city than Sydney, but it might just be a consequence of the illusion, that is a result of my swift Melbournization. It will be strange indeed to return to pint-sized home.

Hedonism and Utility

There are two kinds of people in Philosophy. Philosophy Hedonists and Philosophy Users.

The distinction is made clear in our course Epistemology and Metaphysics. We are dealing with the classic argument against the existence of God, by appealing to the existence of evil. In explaining what we do, my bias, and ergo the camp in which I'm is obvious. We play around with arguments, question premises, find counterexamples, discuss catagories, identify catagory errors and circularity, and discuss the nature of possibility and necessity. It's fun. You see, the nature of philosophy is two fold. Firstly, you can use arguments to support or form your beliefs. Secondly, the process of supporting and forming belief is stimulating in itself. The Users would primarily do philosophy for it's utility. In the case of this course, it would be to refute the atheists or the theists. The Hedonists, like myself, like to have our brain tickled and we don't care too much about the content.

It's a little more complex than that, though. I *do* care about the content. This determines its relevancy. But again, this could just be more intellectual exercise. And the Users, in the end, enjoy the end the means (philosophy) brought them.

So I'm not just being a Hedonist, I'm going to draw a parralell. With theology.

I wonder, are many of us academic types Theology Hedonists? If so, is this neccessarily a bad thing?

The Borg Needs A Boyfriend

Remember in Black Books when it was summer time and Bernard said he needed a Summer girlfriend so he'd stop staring at all the girls in thier summer frocks? Wellllll, so that I stop staring at all the Indian and Middle Eastern guys (which is kind of difficult not to do, given that they're everywhere) I need a Melbourne boyfriend that I can toss aside as soon as leave this place...

I'm kidding of course. I don't need a boyfriend. And even if I did, I know enough to know that ethnicity, nay even physical appearance, is not enough determine true, decided love. Of course.

On a lighter note, here is one of my other Melbourne obsessions: Interracial couples. Back home, this didn't happen much except for the token hot Asian chick with geeky Anglo boyfriend. Here, I've noticed patterns and I'm also trying to figure out the determining factors. In a big city, which is the most ethnically diverse in Australia, INTRA-racial dating/marriage is much more common than otherwise. This is because people form ghettos, based around church/religious groups, school and social and familial groups (this is all conjecture m'kay?). Also, there are pressures from your family and widder social group not to inter-marry. There are religious pressures too, which often coincide with race. So, it is unusual and interesting to note interracial couples.

So, here is a hierachy of inter-ethnic couples I have noticed, proportional to the people belonging to that enthic group. Key: A = East Asian, W = White Caucasian, D = Dark Caucasian, B = Africans. F = female, M = male. (No gay couples included - much fewer here than in Sydney)

F A & M W
F A & M D
F W & M D
F D & M W
F A & M B
F W & M B
F W & M A

Other combinations not observed.

It would be interesting and controversial to publish a study attempting to explain such patterns... Any thoughts?

Three Girls, Four Churches and a Dog

Don't feed dogs fresh waffles. Unless you don't plan on eating chicken and asparagus rissotto again.

Anyway, other than last nights traumatic sharehouse experience, "things" have been good. I'm not feeling as depressed as I was a couple of days ago. Right now I'm listening to The Police. They are cool progressive rock. I also like Greenday's Boulevard of Broken Dreams. The weather is cool to cold, which suits me fine. Okay. BORING!

Kurche. Yesterday I went to three churches. How holy am I? (If I was John Constantine, I would add that to my tally). Let me tell you about them, in a non-systematic way because I am tired and am saving my intellectual energy for Kripke, m'kay? Last week I went to South Yarra, so I'll report on that too.

South Yarra Presbyterian: Small congregation. Friendly. Food afterwards. Bible read early on. Long, good prayer. Good sermon by Stuart Bonnington, who is leaving for WA. Sacrificial atonement not explicity preached.

Bundoora Presbyterian: Friendly people, families mainly. Relaxed atmosphere. John Diacos is a dude and I would like to go to an evening service to hear him speak. Took the Lord's Supper. That was powerful. Lady I was talking to afterwards asked if I was a mature aged student. She put me at about twenty five. I put it down to the dark rings under my eyes from sleep deprevation. Other than that, I cannot see how I look older. Is it my snobby mouth? My plucked eyebrows? I don't have wrinkles, but I may soon, from all this paronia.

Elwood Presbyterian: Very small congregation. Mainly old white people plus an Asian extended family. John preachedon blessing. At about this time, my brain was porridge, so I can't say anything intelligent or true about it. Sorry. (phew, got out of that one).

Glen Waverly Anglican Church: Big congregation. Lots of praying. Could see slight SydAng influence. Although, Bible wasn't read until the sermon. Sermon on Jesus' teachings on divorce in Mark's gospel. Sacrificial Atonement preached. Poor exegisis. Andrew, the preacher, didn't wasn't bold enough to say "Christians, don't get divorced." Instead, he said something about reading the passage in context which was not at all convincing. Free bread. People my age. I ripped off a man in wheel chair selling chocolates. I'm so used to talking to wierdos that I didn't even know that a guy who was talking to me had aspergers.

If Bundoora was closer, I would go there (I may be able to find someone nearby who goes). GWAC is convenient and I know people there. South Yarra is can-get-there-able, but is loosing Stuart. If I went to GWAC, I probably wouldn't get fed. Spiritually that is (they have yummy potato chips).

Ergo, the search continues. Next week I think I'm going to Donvale Pressy in the morning. I'll see if I can get to Bundoora at night.

A Bit More Than A Day In The Life Of Part II

Wednesday was a funny day and I am trying to remember it. I think it started with a fellow student staring at me across the mahogany National Trust tables and ended with the same student demonstrating his L33t filosof33 skilz in order to give me his email address which meant that the bus home from wasn't until eight so I ended up walking the three kilometers along the highway. At least I scored lollies and free photocopies from a book on Kripke on Wittgenstien.

CU was a lot like FOCUS. The talk was good, by the Leader, Dave. From Colossians. Encouraging. I made a new friend. Her name is "Benji", because most people can't say her Chinese name. I'm hoping we'll go to an art gallery together.

I've also made friends with Jason and Saskia, fellow ex-pats who I do philosophy with. Benji said that a different Jason (from Singapore) is a Christian. So I shall have to talk to him too. He is in two of my classes.

I'm missing my friends at home terribly. It's been good to catch up with Tracey (so hilarious) and John (not hilarious in the same way Tracey is, but just as 4wesome to hang out with).

I have a supervisor. His name is Barry Taylor and I have not met him yet.

I now have a good, "empirically verified" reason not to go on Zoloft or any other happy pill. According to my crazy lecturess, mood is associated with cognative states. I wish I could remember the exact wording of the quote, but depression brings on or follows the crispness, analycity and rigour of philosophical thought. So Schopenhoer wasn't the only depressed philosophy.

A Day in the Life Part 1

Wake up at 7:50am. Dress in running clothes and thread key ring around singlet top strap. Jog through pine forrest, green, McMansionVille, bushland (suburban Melbourne has lots of this) and play spot the Italian house. I look out for patio railings in the shape of pillars, gargoyles on gables, big brick fences, lots of cement, stone lions at the gatepost and a big sign out the front saying "Fresh Pasta". Keys work (I swapped with Flick). After I get ready, I walk to the bus, which is consistently eight minutes late. Catch a late train from the station. At this time of day, passengers are mainly pensioners and people with mental problems. Get off at Central station. Wait at train station and follow the other young people onto a tram. This will take me to the university if I hop off at the right stop. Walk through campus, unsure of exact location of the Moot Court, but walk in general easterly direction.

I arrive at a room which is National Trust protected (ergo no hot drinks. Of course philosophers pay no heed to this). I am suprised to discover that I'm one of only four girls in a class of twenty. This reflects a trend in tertiary education. Also, philosophy is one arts subject considered manly enough for men to get phds in. I guess the women are off discussing literary theory or having babies or getting their nails done or whatever they do instead of philosophy.

My lecturess is so hyper-animated I wanted to laugh at the absurdity but then realised that that would be totally innapropriate. She gets enthusiastic about deconstructing theory laden claims about assesing emotion for rationality. She is quick and clearly highly intelligent and articulate. She has a New Zealand accent. She has hairy legs.

My other two lecturers are not nearly as mad, so niether are probably as good a philosopher as she is. The other students are quite mad though, or at least slightly wierd. It's nice to be among company.

I'm running out of energy right now, so I'll tell you, Dear Reader, more tommorow. Before I go, I just have to get this out of system... I was looking for the lecture theatre in which the Christian Union talk was held. I had my diary out and was looking around. Then... and this is the highlight of my day... this good looking, polite, well dressed, Indian guy asked me if I was lost and I showed him the CU flyer and he took me to where CU is held. I wish could tell you the happy ending to this story like "He joined me at CU, we had coffee at the post-grad bar, he proposed and we had a shotgun Indian wedding (without all the Hindu bits)." Alas not. Besides, he said something like "That's quite hard to find beacuse this building is really old and archaic." *Old and archaic*? Hello! I can't be with a guy who commits tautologies like that. ;-) Besides, he was probably only helping me out because he needed more good kharma or something like that.