2nd Year in Geology and Mid Semester Break

Start of 2nd year

2nd Year in UWA is quite exciting isnt it? As for the introduction lectures, you are always told that this unit and that unit is difficult. Bottomline, Be Prepared to Work Hard!.

Each week passes faster and faster due to the amount of things to do. Give you a sample of what is my timetable like.

Get up -> Do some work -> Get ready for uni -> Travel to uni -> Go for classes/lectures -> Travel back home -> Prepare dinner -> Work -> Facebook -> Sleep.

And the process repeats again and again.

Mid Semester Break

In 1st year, we always look forward to a well deserved break. But when you get to that, you will be surely disappointed. Assignments after assignments after assignments. What is so different about 2nd year? Well, you will not enjoy your mid semester break as you need to prepare for your mid semester exams the following week. How fun is that?

Ok, perhaps not for my case. I have this assignment which can only be done in uni. I would need to look at thin section of rocks and that can only be seen under a petrological microscope. So, most of my days for the mid sem break is spent in uni, trying to finish my work.

Oh well, we are now back to the same routine. 2.5 months before the end of the semester. Looking forward to my winter break.

Lets go lets go!

Time to add some life to the blog

It is getting a drag here. Everybody else has finished their exams but there are some who have not finished yet. You feel the drag of just wanting the exam to come and gone so that you can do other things. The days are getting longer and you are getting more and more irritated.

Just hang in there and it will be all over very soon.

Countdown to end of 1st year in 48 hours.

*smashes rock at the exam table, resulting in a horrific explosion* no.. that is not even possible at all. :)

And All is silent

On that Friday, I handed in the poster that took us 2 months to finish.

However, we have to pay for it ourselves. $88 for an assignment?

Handed it at the box and say, "phew, that is over"

"But wait, I still have loads of stuff to do"

-First Exam-

EART1108 Geographical Perspectives 31/10/09 9am

=.= I do not really understand why we have exams on a Saturday.

And all is silent because, you cant do anything about it.

We are getting there, arent we?

Just came back from a group meeting. I am only glad that the project is now going into a direction where we have something to write about.

Im just flatout. Sleep is good for the soul. Amen to that.

Update for the sake of updating

Ok, it is not that tedious but so many things have happened over the weeks. I cant seem to keep track of what is going on.

And you know what, UWA has one more week left before study break. After study break, we have exams. After exams, we can go home. But.... it is really too fast. I just want next week to not end at all so that I can finish my assignments and work and understand what I have learnt.

*looks at thy rock*

PPPPLLLLEEAAASSEEE tell me who you are so that I can pass my geology practical exam. Or else, I will smash you with my hammer.

O.O

Things have been breaking apart since I came back from the trip.

1. My chair -> one of the legs just broke off. But I still can support myself on it.

2. The wardrobe in general -> Handles are getting lose.

Not sure why though but I guess my stuff shows the durability of the things around here. LOL

Reflections of the Albany Field Trip

I just came back from a 5 day field trip in Albany. This trip was part of the unit I was taking and I really enjoyed the experience. It was hard and the workload from this is intense. Day after day, we travel around to different places to look at the different rock outcrops. These outcrops do have a story to tell about the history of the place. For example, the Stirling Ranges has the rock age of 2,000 million years old. But the geology and the lithology of the place does not suggest that there were biological lifeforms. More information is needed to support that hypothesis. We could only spend 1 morning at the place due to time constrain and a tight programme.

I remember one of the church members (who is a retired geochemist) told me that as you study geology, you must be prepared to work alone most of the time. Only then, I do know what does that mean. You go around, looking at outcrops and record your observations. These observations are true as they become the data that would support your future hypotheses of the area. If you have people working with you and they jump into interpretations. By hearing their conversations leads to a distortation in your understanding of the lithology of the place.

Part of the error lies within me as I did felt inadequately prepared for the trip. My understanding of geology is limited and I do have limitations in my observations as well. The only thing I could do is to perhaps train on my observations to record as much detail as I can. (Details such as grain size, grain orientation, minerals present (due to cleavage or twinnings), clast or matrix supported rock, differentiate between mafic and felsic streams, bearings of joints/lines of weaknesses and so on..) It is quite a handful to have record as much data as possible but I wish I could have taken some samples back for further examination.

I do notice a sharp contrast with a PhD student and a first year undergraduate student. The PhD student works alot faster than us as they have the experience. Even if we carry the same gear as them, they are able to use the instruments more competantly than us. I too realise that even we think we are professionals in this area, there will be others who are better than us. From that lesson, I understand the mentality of having a teachable spirit and a humble heart. I just hope that I did not give that impression that I had a closed up mind. My lecturer said that if we have a fixated mind to a particular hypothesis, we are not studying science at all.

So much to do but we do need to start somewhere. Novice first, professionals later.

A tip about keeping your neck flexible

Have you been staring at the computer for too long?

Try the following:

1) Bend your neck to your right or left

2) Hear a nice *crack* at your neck*

3) Heave a sigh of relief

4) Do your neck exercises by doing neck rotations

5) This only takes 1 minute of your time. :)

Cheers.

Happy Birthday Darling

Well, one of the times that I shall just dedicate a post about you. :) You are now 'legalised' and welcome to the realm of being an adult. Have a smash on the day and you can only turn 18 once.

Hope you like the gift which should be flying towards Melbourne at the moment. :)

Have fun and God Bless you!

Countdown to Melbie

I shant need to say much about this. I think I can wait.. no I cant. Can time pass a bit faster for a while and be slower when Im there?

MP3 Playlist for the family blog

I have always wondered how people put music onto their blogs. I asked one of my friends named Angel and she told me how to do that. Now I can start to finetune the family blog after receiving comments. :)

Thanks Angel. :)

3 weeks of Holiday left

What have I been doing these few weeks besides playing, sleeping and slacking? Have I done anything productive these few days?

Well, doing my disciple readings is just one of them. But also, you have the time to take stock what really happened over the past few months. I visited the Canning students to 'disturb' them and encourage them to keep on going. At the back of our minds, we thought, we were like that just now. University is great but I do think that Foundation year was even better.

The days of Vickery house was full of fun and sadness. There are occassions that we just go completely nuts. This is just one example. When we were preparing for our End of Year exams, we just didnt have the mood to study. So.. this is what we did. I went over to Oliver's and Edward's unit to play some Maplestory private server. Guess what time we slept? I slept at 4am and the physics paper was just a few hours away. The rest played till the sun rose up. I am not sure whether we can do that again but the experience makes us laugh.

For those who still have exams, just do your best. It will end by the time you know it. :)

One and a Half weeks of holiday

You are now coming to the part where you 'eagerly' await for your results. After all those weeks of preparation, you sometimes think to yourself, "Have I done enough?"

But I shall just say, I have done what I can do and I just wait patiently. Very interesting indeed. :) Meanwhile, I just carry on with Xbox and wait for the trip to Melbourne. *heart heart*

Have you LOL-ed before?

I think I am going to LOL in 6 hours time. Hello holidays and pls pls pls pls pls.. job please.. $$

The day has come after all those days of preparation

It has been quite hard over the past few weeks trying to prepare for these end of semester exams. They constitute a large piece of the unit marks so there is no room for mucking around. I think I find, you can never be prepared from all the preparation. But, you can still depend on one that is always present. I know I cannot go without Him preparing the way.

Thank you for those who have finished their exams today and enjoying themselves. I pray that whatever results they get, it would be to the glory of you. Amen.

1 week of Study Break, one week before my exams really start

I have been sooooooooooooooooooooo productive (NOT!) but at least I hope I am getting somewhere. Studying patterns, the more stressed you are, you tend to multitask alot more without getting distracted/or distracted.

So... how shall I put it? Get up at 9am every morning and find out to see what I have sold on Flyff (LOL! really old MMORPG). Then you go and open facebook and 3 other browser games and just leave it there. In the meantime, you do your work. Does that distract me? Nope, I dun think so since they do not require much effort to click around.

Needless to say, my revision for Anthropology will end today and I have one more unit to revise. On top of that, I need to do questions but that will done at a later time. Get all your information before you start tackling the questions. However, I can only hope and pray that this technique will be effective. Heheh.. 

Talk to you all later. Tackling media now.

A new post, a blank post with an update

Randomness is something that I let my hands do the talking. What shall I say?

There goes the 1st semester. Can you imagine that 5 months just whizzed by without us realising that, "oh, we are done already?" Heads up people, get real and before you know it, you will be at home for Christmas.

Tada!

First the assignments, then the cockroaches?

It so happens that I can say that I am almost done with my assignments. Earth presentation slides has just been submitted to the website, just need to prepare on what i want to say based on those slides. My anthropology essay is somewhat done, kudos to my Dad for helping me proof read and commenting at the same time. Econs quiz preparation, done. Anything else?

Well, I was so lazy just facebooking and playing games when I just heard a scream in the bathroom. It started with a scream.. then a commotion of everybody's annoying black ugly friend, the cockroach. Not just one but two running around. I smacked one but the other escaped my hand. However, they seem to be popping out all over the place. Just then, I just smell like somebody just vomited a distance away. Geez.. strange things happen today.

Oh, by the way, my housemate now trembles in fear of cockroaches. Hope it doesnt get him in the middle of the night. >.<

Cheers mates

After seven weeks of research about Climate Change

Today was the day. It was a special day because the project has been completed. 7 weeks of intense research and writing, e-mails flying all over the place was compiled to a 19 page report. We had work limit constrains and there was alot to say. We agreed on it, printed it out, wrote our peer assessment forms and dropped it into the box.

There was a sense of euphoria when that was done. It is over for some of us. I am blessed to have good group members. It has been fun working with them and scratching our heads over this. 

"Not by power, not by might but by my spirit, says the Lord God Almighty"

I am indeed amazed on how we managed to finish the project. I do not consider myself lucky but I know that God is always in control. He has helped the group in the Climate Change project, the Scientific Investigation report and assignments. Now, I am plowing through books regarding the anthropology of religion.

I seek and pray for guidance for I too question about my faith. Religion changes people and societies. It provides the structure of the society and laws that will govern them. Alright, I gotta get back to my books.

Shall update this soon.

One term down, one more to go

*happy face*

A glorious finish for the end of half a semester. We did it, every single one of us. The week of study break is here and Easter is here as well. So we should celebrate with something special. This saturday is the highly anticipated most GG like Paintball game. Everybody will go NUTZ!! and WACKO and GGing around.

So, load up your weapons and go *splat splat splat*

You wish it could be like that everyday. Unfortunately, we still have alot of work to do. Mid semester exams and quizes and project date lines are like after the study break. Sure, no formal classes but you still need to keep going.

GOGOGOGOGO. One thing at a time and we all can have a nice rest. :D