This blog is now password protected (or friends-only in Livejournal-speak). If you’re interested in reading about my adventures in Europe, please don’t hesitate to email me or leave a comment and I’ll send you the password. For my friends in LJ-land nothing should change. I hope this won’t mean I lose some of my readers, but it’s beyond my control. So please send me a message, I won’t bite! Thanks!

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

I find these guys so hilarious. I have a couple myself, but every time I go back to Techno City there are more of them! How could a simple plush rectangular cushion thing be so insanely cute? add some eyes and other facial characteristics, arms and legs, call it とふ and you have a winner!

These guys are in little tofu boxes like you might buy from the supermarket!

More tofu…

And more…

All of these are separate claw machines…

And finally, this one was awesome because it’s a tshirt thingy with a super angry looking tofu.

Bonus extra: I think this guy is supposed to be Natto, which is a fermented soy food that is kinda stinky.

Yeah, I’m a tofu tragic!

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

Nicholas and I went to Manly Oceanworld today, fulfilling yet another of the “things I want to do before moving to Belgium”. There are more photos in my photo gallery, and I’m pretty pleased with my new little Canon Ixus 90IS and its “aquarium” mode!
One of the best things was this awesome little rock fish which was decorating its area of the tank. It would go and pick up a mouthful of rocks, then come back and spit them into its little den. I managed to capture it on film, but it wouldn’t do its normal thing and instead did some crazy rock manoeuvres. Hrmpf.

If you look at the other videos there you’ll find a hilarious one with a cuttlefish banging into the wall >_> I’m not sure if cuttlefish can skulk exactly but that’s sort of what it appears to do.

Anyway I had a lovely time and although the Manly aquarium isn’t as big and impressive as Sydney aquarium it does have the major benefit of being easy to get to and not filled with millions of tourists. :D

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

Today was a good day! As you can see in the photo not only did I end up with a delicious box of cupcakes, but I have my brand new Kindle 2 which I am totally digging. Oh yeah and I got my hair cut as well. A bit shorter than before but I quite like it! (thanks Nicholas for the photo!)

The cupcakes from the “Cupcakes on Pitt” on York are really delicious. Tonight Nicholas and I shared a peppermint, a raspberry, and a green tea cake, and tomorrow we will probably plough through the blueberry, carrot, and tiramisu ones.

Today I also had my last French lesson. 4 weeks of intensive French at the Alliance Française was really quite awesome. I had a fabulous time with my fellow students (including the wonderfully talented Holly Throsby) and our intrepid professeuse Aurélie who really made the whole course for me! She was so bouncy and enthusiastic and obviously loved teaching, and was good at it to boot. I really feel like I’ve learned some basic language skills which is great :D I’ll need to study past tense though since we didn’t quite get to that stage in our course :( Anyway, AF French courses come highly recommended!

The next big highlight of the day was getting my Kindle! I had to trundle to the post office to pick it up and it was dutifully waiting for me to unwrap it and play! I managed to get some ebooks onto it and found it’s most excellent for reading while knitting, since you don’t have to hold the book down to keep your place (or ruin the spines). I might write a full Kindle review later, but since it’s about to be superceded by the DX it might not be worthwhile. Suffice to say, though, it feels excellent in my hands, is a joy to read from, the e-ink really is quite impressive, and I can see it becoming an essential part of my academic and non-academic work. I love the dictionary lookups, I love the annotations, the footnotes could use a bit of work but all in all it’s a very nice package. Only things I’m a bit meh about are lack of Whispernet outside the US, and lack of some sort of protective cover included with it. I’m currently knitting myself a kindlecosie but I suspect the one I’m making is too hairy >< (alpaca/angora so super fluffy) so I might have to make it something else instead, or give it a lining. Two thumbs up to the Kindle!

Also, I got my hair cut. I got it done by the same girl who did my hair for my sister’s wedding, and I quite like it — a bit shorter than last time but that just means that there’s more growth room til I can find a new hairdresser in Belgium! lol.

Anyway that’s what’s been up with me today. I had a good meeting with my new boss too, found out it gets to -25degC and snows in winter in Namur. Haha. I’ll need some new clothes when it gets to that point but I somehow doubt I’ll be able to find good clothes for general subzero wear here. :)

So if you have any good recommendations for books to get for my Kindle, please let me know!

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

I was reading the SMH when I encountered this article: a sort of “human interest” article about gender reassignment surgery and how it’s “ruined peoples’ lives”. I will state up front that I don’t know anyone who’s had gender reassignment surgery but I know a couple of people who are wanting it. It certainly doesn’t seem like a walk in the park, and they’ve already gone on heavy hormone regimes to feel more complete within themselves, but the surgery is outside their budgets for now. Anyway, with that disclaimer, I introduce the article:

Gender setters- when doctors play God.

Firstly, in this article there’s a lot of generalising going on. For one, these cases should be dealt with as any other malpractice case — in the first case, the patient stated that they didn’t want the operation to proceed, and the surgeons continued anyway; in the second case, the woman should have had more and better assessment before prescription of drugs & surgery.

“She acknowledges she gave consent for the procedure, but believes it was not informed consent. She feels she was mentally ill, and childhood abuse played a part in her gender confusion.”

These two cases seem pretty clear cut to me. In the first there was a definite request to halt the surgery. In the second, there is a tragic case of abuse and mental illness which the clinic’s doctors ignored. But this is not something restricted to gender reassignment surgery.

Secondly, it bothers me greatly that an article that tries to champion ethical values ends up casting a greater shadow of fear and uncertainty over those who legitimately and dearly wish to have gender reassignment surgery. Horror stories like those addressed by the article need to be discussed in the public sphere for sure, but they need to be treated sensitively. Although I have not experienced it myself, and can never fully understand what it is like to wish to be of the opposite gender, I can only imagine it must be a terribly difficult thing to come to terms with. This newspaper article cannot do much for those with gender dysmorphia who are also dealing with needing to explain complicated and sensitive issues with their families and friends.

What the article should have done was also look at some success stories, instead of simply going for, and ending with, the immediate drawing factor of the poor people unlucky enough to have to deal with a terrible clinic. Informed consent is an empowering device, and in these cases the clinic was terribly out of line in their poor informing practices. This does not mean, however, that all clinics are the same, and that gender reassignment surgery is a priori bad in all cases, just that, like many surgical procedures (especially cosmetic ones), they need to be treated with a lot of sensitivity and care.

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

Browsing the Kindle store after ordering a Kindle 2 (!!!) I found this gem:

Amazon.com: REMOVED — DON’T BUY eBook: Confucius: The Kindle Store.

To quote Nicholas:

“Can you buy it? I want to buy the book that both can and cannot be bought.”

The best bit:

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	72% buy the item featured on this page: REMOVED — DON’T BUY $1.08
	28% buy The Analects of Confucius (with an Introduction by Robert Taylor) $0.95

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

I forgot to write about the pinball expo that we went to last weekend! Here are some photos:

It was pretty fun, but they blew a fuse or something toward the end of our visit which meant everything shut down. But I got to play some baseball pinball game and Nicholas played something else as well. And we watched some guy play a really old game as part of a competition (one with an analogue counter instead of a digital one!). He was rather large and made amusing noises every time he hit the paddle button thing, and did a little dance when he did well!

This weekend we went into the city on Saturday and used up some tickets we had to the Powerhouse Museum. It was pouring with rain as we walked from Town Hall over to the Powerhouse by way of the Pyrmont bridge, we got rather wet and ended up going via the shopping centre and convention centres instead of up the road. In there we found there’s a laser tag game, and briefly considered abandoning our earlier plans until we realised that the large group of tiny children around 8-10 years old or so were going to be particularly difficult adversaries considering a) their height, b) their general fitness levels, and c) the fact that 8-10 year old boys playing laser tag are undoubtedly going to be super hardcore players of laser tag. So we continued on our quest for Powerhouse Museum-ness.

When we arrived, unfortunately the Star Wars exhibit had closed, but that meant everything was pretty quiet, so we looked at design across the ages and played in the experimentation area. We also went in the “zero gravity” simulator in the space exhibit, which was basically a tunnel you walked into which had a rotating cylinder around it which, well, rotated. And worked extremely well. I felt really ill very quickly and so escaped out of the tunnel (and afterwards, when I went into confined spaces it felt as though everything was still spinning!) and generally think the whole thing very squicky. After that we wandered back to the city via Chinatown and Emperor Golden Puffs house (which is celebrating 30 years of puff making and giving 10% off everything in their bakery and restaurant) for some delicious hot puffs before venturing to George St to catch a bus to Circular Quay in order to walk over to the Wharf theatre to catch part of the Sydney Writers Festival.

At the Festival we saw a panel discussion on David Foster Wallace, an author who died far too young (committed suicide recently), and wrote many pieces including journalistic articles and fictional short stories and novels. Nicholas had just finished reading Infinite Jest, and I was half way through “A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again” (excruciatingly funny), so we decided it might be interesting to go to, and it was a really nice night out. A little wanky, sure, but what I thought would be a boring sort of lecture about really specific literary criticism turned into an interesting discussion about some of the things he used in his writing and the intricacies of running a major fan website for such an author. I’m sure there’ll be a movie available soon — the ABC was filming it so I’m sure we’ll see it some time. It’s worth a look if you’re at all interested in his work.

Another bus ride up to Pitt St and we went to Mother Chu’s Vegetarian Restaurant, which is always a delight. Mother Chu sits in the corner with a huge pile of books and writing paper and gazes over her empire with a matronly look, which is always inspiring because you get the distinct feeling that the people actually running things are extremely concerned about falling foul of this gaze and thus do their best to make sure you are always enjoying yourself as much as possible. Indeed, the food was excellent and the service similarly so. A brisk walk (and jog) back to Wynyard and the bus home and I was exhausted!

Today I wrote some of my book chapter. And procrastinated. And did some French. And fiddled with some things. And I’m going to watch the F1. Go Webber!

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

This was some extremely rough Swaledale top from Ewe Give Me The Knits which is just gorgeous, if extremely hairy. You can see just how hairy it is in the photo! I think I might make a bag from it, possibly felt it or something, but I’m not sure as yet. I chose the name because the colours remind me of those beautiful kingfisher greens and blues, also because it was spun as part of the EGMTK Ravelry group’s May spin challenge which had the prompt “Birds” or something like that. :)

Anyway I’m particularly pleased with the result, despite the roughness. I’m currently spinning some Polwarth which is super soft (I honestly was surprised at how soft the Polwarth is!) and finishing knitting another of those beautiful shawls I finished a while back for my grandma — this one is for my other grandmother!

Belgian adventure is currently still underway, waiting for the Wallonie region to issue me with a work permit so I can apply for the visa here at the embassy. I’m not a criminal which is great, and now have a certificate to prove it! Thanks Aussie Federal Police!

In other news, Nicholas and I went to Bundanoon on the weekend and went geocaching for the first time. We went to the same cache that (I believe) Nathan et al. went to on their way back to Canberra after the last trip, in Belanglo State Forest. Any Aussie knows well what lurks within that forest… it’s the scene where one of our most notorious serial killers killed and buried 7 bodies of his victims. Suffice to say it’s a creepy place, and after driving through some pretty pine plantations we came upon some creepy creepy ghost gums, all twisted and bent like skeletons or ghosts… then we bushbashed our way to the cache where Nicholas took a picture of me looking a little nervous…

Anyway, the “Forest of Fear” cache overcome, we did some 4 wheel driving in my 2 wheel drive car and managed to make it back out of the forest alive. This time!

The rest of the weekend was also awesome, lots of relaxing and preparation for my new job (lots of reading about governance etc!).

French is going well too, learning lots of things but am still pretty poor overall. Gotta practise a lot! But our teacher is super enthusiastic and bouncy and fun so makes the 2 hour classes go very quickly! Lots of fun :D

Hope you’re all having a lovely time too. I’ve been pretty busy recently so I apologise if I haven’t been commenting or writing as much as I usually do!

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

I’ve been super busy, what with my impending move to Belgium! I’ve been writing up the 2ish papers required for my CSU writeup award (taken from my thesis, so it’s not too bad, but still requires a lot of tweaking — it’s tough trying to condense 15k words into around 6k!), getting the documentation ready for my Visa application (being poked & prodded & xrayed for a medical certificate, getting the police to say I’m not a scary person, etc.), and taking advantage of Medicare before I bugger off.

I’m trying to work out if I can get another pair of glasses out of Medibank before I go too. I got one around Novemberish, and I think they said 1 pair per year, but I’m not sure. I’m basically wanting to make sure I get something out of them before I go because they sure as hell have made a lot out of me, what with me only using their free dental & optical options!

I’ve also put a whooole load of my old junk high quality goods up on ebay, with more to come. liedra’s extremely exciting ebay shop thingy! Don’t feel obliged to buy anything, I wouldn’t want to wish Gauntlet Dark Legacy on anyone to tell you the truth ;)

Anyway just thought I’d update you all on where I am! I’m pretty pleased with my new website, I finally found a theme that makes me happy. I took the photo of the koi at the Gosford Japanese Gardens, which I’m off to again this weekend for Mother’s Day (don’t forget!).

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

No spoilers really, but if you would rather not read anything about Star Trek, move along!

Star Trek's world premiere was held at the Sydney Opera House tonight with a bunch of people in attendance including Abrams the director, Pike, Quinto, Bana, and a bunch of other people I didn't know. Leonard Nimoy unfortunately wasn't there :( I got to walk up the red carpet, which made me feel pretty spesh. Photos to come, but iPhoto has decided to crap out on me so I can't get my photos from my camera atm :(

Anyway it was really quite good. I haven't seen much in the way of Star Trek before, and it really made me quite interested in the history of it, to see where it had come from, etc. etc.

I don't want to spoil it for anyone outside spoiler tags, but although there were some cheesy parts, some obvious fan-services, etc., there wasn't anything face-palmingly bad, and the actors were all pretty good. I had a few problems with some of the plot points, but since the whole movie didn't really take it too seriously I am vaguely willing to let those go because they sort of addressed the ludicrousness of some of them in a light-hearted manner. I was actually pretty surprised at how much I enjoyed it, though, I was expecting either a totally awful movie with lots of terrible cheesy moments, or a badly acted, badly put together, poor story sort of movie. It wasn't either of these, and I really thoroughly enjoyed it. I happily gave the cast & crew a standing ovation with the rest of the opera house at the end!

Quinto as Spock definitely stole the show. He played Spock with a real charm and character, and I lol'd quietly when he had a quick Sylar-quirk of the eyebrow at one point!
Also I got within about 3 rows of him which was pretty ^^/ for me, since I'm a bit of a fan. Anyway. Although I found the Kirk character to be a bit annoying, he was supported by a great cast with all the "familiar faces".

Overall I enjoyed the movie, and I think anyone who is not a totally rabid "OMG BUT THEY MISSED THAT TINY LITTLE CANON FACT IN SOME OBSCURE BOOK" fan will probably enjoy it. It will at least reboot the franchise a little and possibly excite people to go back and look at the old stuff again :D It's certainly worthy of a movie ticket!

Today Matt and I went to a thai vego cooking course, Matt taking Nicholas' place since he's overseas!

Pics after the cut:
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Well yesterday I submitted my PhD. I've already raved about it on twitter and facebook, but I thought I'd let you guys here know too! :D

Anyway I'm having a lovely mini-break before getting stuck into squeezing some papers out of it and applying for jobs! It's been really nice not having it hanging over me any more, and knowing it's now sitting on someone else's desk and well out of my control.

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who helped me out, you were all wonderful! I'll be having a party soon (because hopefully I will get a job and not be here when I actually graduate), so you are all preemptively invited! Yay!


If anyone is curious about it, you can view the print master here: http://liedra.net/misc/print-marking-copy-020409.pdf

This is before it's been marked, and I expect I will be required to make changes, but I'm pretty proud of it!

Once again, thanks everyone! I couldn't have done it without you!

Well so far 2009 is turning out pretty well :D

As promised a couple of photos from the midnight fireworks here in Sydney!



We could see all the way down the harbour, the 4 mirrored sets of fireworks!



The bridge was so beautiful!



At the end I couldn't take photos because I was just so stunned at the amazing display they put on. It really was the most awesome fireworks I've seen in Sydney yet. The finale with the whole city almost exploding with fireworks (all the fireworks coming off the buildings and all up and down the harbour and all along the road leading up to the bridge and all off the bridge) literally had the crowd where we were awestruck. Best spending of tax payer money ever!

Anyway hope you all have a wonderful New Year and that 2009 brings you much joy!

Nicholas and I just rushed down the end of the road to watch the fireworks at 9pm! Here are some photos (more to come from the midnight ones too, since I love fireworks!).



All the boats were twinkling prettily on the harbour, waiting!



Pretty!



Yay, Sydney's the best for New Years. A balmy 25degC and beautiful clear weather, and a wonderful view!

See you in the new year, Happy New Year people! Much <3 to you all :D

The other day I received an Ashford student spindle in the mail. It came with a "greasy sliver" of merino wool, which I taught myself to spin with. Today I spun some lovely merino tops in carmine and cream, from "Ewe Give Me The Knits". This is my first real attempt, I plied it and everything -- it's so soft and yummy. There's enough for probably a shortish scarf or a silly hat. I'm not sure what I'll make with it though, suggestions? :) 

Anyway I just wanted to brag a bit. I'm pretty pleased with my effort! 

And they're off! Yum yum. :)

Hey Fafnir! How do you like your new enclosure, huh?

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Just testing my phone's picture blog capability! Here's a bad pic from the super awesome Dragonforce concert I went to last night. \m/

Nicholas and I have been enjoying watching Season 2 of House, and we’ve developed a drinking game based on the events that inevitably occur during each episode.

Have a drink:

* for each procedure, e.g. lumbar puncture, MRI, CAT scan, etc.
* each time the patient has a seizure. Have another drink if the seizure is during a procedure. 2 if in the MRI
* each time the diagnosis changes
* each time House manages to get Wilson to pay for him. Have another if House keeps the change
* each time Cuddy is snarky at House with underlying sexual tension
* each time House is right after everyone else is wrong (”I told you so” moments)
* every time there’s a computer generated scene
* whenever there is sexual tension between House & his ex-wife
* every time they break into someone’s house
* every time House blatantly ignores informed consent rules (this one was for me!)

This was enough to get us good and solidly drunk over 2 episodes (well, 1.5, we only decided to start playing half way through the first). Suggestions welcome! (no spoilers for other seasons though thanks!)

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

wzdd and I have been enjoying watching Season 2 of House, and we've developed a drinking game based on the events that inevitably occur during each episode.

Have a drink:

* for each procedure, e.g. lumbar puncture, MRI, CAT scan, etc.

* each time the patient has a seizure. Have another drink if the seizure is during a procedure. 2 if in the MRI

* each time the diagnosis changes

* each time House manages to get Wilson to pay for him. Have another if House keeps the change

* each time Cuddy is snarky at House with underlying sexual tension

* each time House is right after everyone else is wrong ("I told you so" moments)

* every time there's a computer generated scene

* whenever there is sexual tension between House & his ex-wife

* every time they break into someone's house

* every time House blatantly ignores informed consent rules (this one was for me!)



This was enough to get us good and solidly drunk over 2 episodes (well, 1.5, we only decided to start playing half way through the first). Suggestions welcome! (no spoilers for other seasons though thanks!)