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Slow Dance

Have you ever watched kids,
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain,
Slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

Do you run through each day,
On the fly?
When you ask “How are you?”
Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done,
Do you lie in your bed,
With the next hundred chores,
Running through your head?
You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

Ever told your child,
We’ll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die,
Cause you never had time,
To call and say “Hi”?
You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere,
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift….
Thrown away.
Life is not a race.
Do take it slower.
Hear the music.
Before the song is over.

R.I.P. Andrew James Lancashire
14 August 1986 – 23 November 2008

An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The first one orders a beer. The second orders half a beer. The third, a quarter of a beer. The bartender says “You’re all idiots”, and pours two beers.

So, the concussion I received from what I imagine would have been a bloody funny crash, had I been watching and concious, has faded. Unfortunately, the back pain hasn’t.

Getting a man to run his hands up and down my back for 10 minutes plus some light radiation (a round about way of saying a Doctor x-rayed me) revealed I had torn a ligament off my spine, and the surrounding muscle was staying stiff due to it.

Luckily, some good physiotherapy combined with a couple of fun drugs helped, and I was told today my spine and the estranged ligament had made their peace and decided to get back together.

1 to 2 weeks recovery, so I guess I’ll take it easy dirtbiking this coming week…

It’s interesting, and rather painful. On the ride home yesterday a dog decided to attack my back wheel as I was going over a jump. 5 seconds of sideways/upside down flight later, the bike landed on my head and I blacked out for about 1 or 2 minutes. I know this cause some guy who was walking HIS dog was a long way away when I went down the road, and next thing I knew he was helping me up.

Anyways, waking up with significantly less skin on my shoulder and leg, I was the proud owner of a busted back (which is in fact causing me serious problems) and a concussion.

Ow.

After chilling at the river enjoying the weather and especially the company (see here to see what I’m on about), Jimmy reminded me we had a Vodka party to go to. I rapidly found pants, and we headed off.

As the theme was trash, I had grown some dirty sideburns, and to complete it we grabbed some garbage bags and fashioned clothing from them. Needless to say, got some weird looks on the train.

Rocking up, we were greeted (or should I say confronted) with midgets playing twister, lesbians pouring whipped cream over people whilst themselves making out, strippers on the tables and a 1 metre long ice sculpture of a penis, complete with chute which you could drink out of. Grabbing a couple of (free – Vodka-O had all their assorted spirits and cocktails available) drinks we started enjoying the night – steering well clear of the giant cock.

Once that finished we made our way back, meeting up with Danni (Nick’s – Jimmy’s older brother – wife) on the train back to Eltham, where she ended up driving us home cause of our slight inability to drive remotely safely.

All I can say about the rest of the night…it didn’t get below 25 degrees and I was drunk as shit. That does not mix well for a good nights sleep.

I write this after riding to work overtired, hungover and feeling seedy as shit, spewing twice on the ride as my stomach rebelled from chugging water with nothing else in it. God I want sleep.

Yesterday (Wednesday) morning after being dropped off home by Dev around 11, I thought I should probably go for a run or some form of exercise apart from drinking.

Bad.

Idea.

It was 32 degrees, I was hungover and dehydrated, running into the sun with a hot northern wind in my face…really, who the hell thought a run was a good idea.

Only managing 6k, I stumbled home and tried to cool down a bit. Fortuitously, Dev swung by on his way back from getting some funky earing made – I’ll try to get some pics of it, cause its pretty original – and suggested we hit up the river.

40 minutes later, armed with cold beers, sandwiches, music and water-suitable chairs (read: any chair I could find which I didn’t care about getting wet) we hit up the river, stopping at his place to pick up Tracy (the wife) and their dog.

One thing to note about going to our usual swimming hole (the part of the yarra in eltham, near Jono’s place) is that doing it during a weekday drastically improves the gender ratio. Normally when we go, a weekend, it’s roughly 3-4 chicks and about 20 guys. Today, 4 good looking P-plater chicks (snap!) and noone else. With Dev and the dog, it was 3 guys to 5 chicks. Good numbers

Had my final exam on Tuesday (the 11th), wasn’t too bad. Unlike the majority of my exams, this one was extremely vague in the sense that you didn’t know what was going to be on the exam. Did alright, but will probably be a case of hit or miss for the marks methinks.
At least for the project worth 60% of the unit I got 90%, so I’ve already passed.

After the exam a uni mate Jesse and I swung past a BWS to grab some beers for his bro. Within 5 minutes of driving off though, the car started making weird noises and smelling. Pulling over, could smell that something had burnt in the engine bay, and the car was refusing to start.

Gave Holden a call, got the RACV to come out, said the same thing…get it towed. So far this had been working smoothly and efficiently. At 6:30 we put in the tow truck request. We sat there on the side of the road, drinking the beers we just bought (ugh Corona’s without lemon/lime) waiting for 90 minutes for this dude to rock up. The only consolation we had was ringing Holden back and chatting up the service chicks…awesome.

Once the tow truck finally arrived, and towed us a whole 1k or so up to Penfold Holden in Burwood, gave Devin a ring and he came and picked us up. Ended the whole escapade by playing the new Guitar Hero World Tour thingie for most of the night, so it turned out all right.

Turns out the ignition barrel (pretty much the ignition switch) had melted in the heat, and gotten stuckin the ‘on’ position…meaning the starter motor was kicking over for 5 minutes constantly while driving. 1 dead starter motor, one dead ignition barrel. Lucky no wiring got damaged I spose…

As its late October/early November, exams are unfortunately in full swing, which means that study is slowing kicking off.

After a couple of hours of frustratingly sub-par study, I can’t help but to wonder that perhaps reinforcement of the entire lecture content in tutorials and marked exercises would have been hugely beneficial, compared to say, the tutorials and marked exercises on well…using Microsoft Project. Which isn’t on the exam, or even mentioned.

Nevertheless, a perfect score in using Project for 10 weeks means that no matter what score I DO get in the exam, as long as I pass the 50% hurdle I will end up with a HD for the unit. That somehow seems stupid, but whatever.