Mid-semester break & exchange

I have a concrete assignment due when I go back but am totally unmotivated to do it. Oh look it’s only worth 5% – back to more interesting things!

I had figured that going on exchange in this degree was impossible, but Mum mentioned it so I looked it up again. The university’s guidelines for postgrad degrees have been relaxed, and since I have to do my thesis alone I can easily do the 1-semester option, so I though it might be a goer. Unfortunately the office told me it’s not allowed in the MPE after all, but I think I have a pretty good case and am going to take it up the chain. Fight them on the beaches! If I had not researched it before emailing them I would probably just be able to accept it, but now I’ve made a shortlist and it all seems rather excellent, I don’t want to back down. Makes me so frustrated with the idea of staying here for another two years.

My shortlist, prepared with the advice of a wisconsin friend on the issues: snow please & a sailing team:

Canada: McGill, Queens, University of British Columbia, University of Toronto, University of Ottawa

USA: University of Pennsylvania, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of California-Berkeley

Apparently going to the USA is the most competitive (we don’t have that many agreements as you can see from the number of snowy ones) so it will probably be Canada, but will try for both.

Oh and the rugby team wrote back so now I got to psych myself up to turn up to practice tomorrow. I’m pretty excited actually (standard someone beat me to it though…)

I met someone else doing the MPE! Aaaand she’s a girl. And a local (ok according to facebook she comes from Texas but IguesswhatI’msayingisshe’snotchinese). And she’s pregnant but that’s fairly irrelevant. We’re friends now. I now have her & my grungy band playing friend as fluids study buddies, grungy friend & old school friend & MPE chinese guys as concrete buddies, and even met one of the girls doing wind through my new friend. The interesting thing is that all of those people (apart from the chinese guys and the wind girl) have failed the respective subject before. Apparently 70% of last year’s 3rd years failed at least one of fluids or concrete…. scary… but I’m not planning to fail, and it seems to be an advantage to study with them because they are approaching it with more intensity, and they know what’s coming up in terms of course structure. And look I know counting friends is odd. But we’ve dealt with that objection many times on the blog: I am odd.

I always have a lot to write about sailing, and also photo post

Last weekend was also the 29erxx regatta – sort of show event for the Bethwaites to promote the class – there was one girl who already has her own xx but the others were supplied. Apparently they are shit boats to sail, mainly that they have a lot of righting moment potential from the big sail, two on the wire, but in a lull it’s hard to keep the boat from going to windward without getting to the other side of the boom somehow. On a boat with wings like the 49er you have that much more distance to just walk in to reduce your moment. They also had a 49erFX out there which seems like a more viable proposition and I’d love to try it.

On Friday we did the Property Industry Foundation Regatta, which is a charity thing our skipper volunteered his boat (and us) to do. The property companies pay about $1000 a head for their guys to go out on boats, which then goes to helping homeless children (and maybe some for the party at the end). We had 7 on our boat so quality charity work if you look at it as your own contribution of 7k!

Far right is our yacht - I know they aren't exactly closeups but we rarely get photographed at all.

A lot of boats had the wrong course onboard (and are apparently incapable of listening to the radio, but hey it was a social day) and kept skipping marks, it was a bit mayhem. Our second rounding of Shark Island, Lahana came through at the most incredible speed I have ever seen a yacht doing up close. Guessing 15 knots, generating a lot of spray, she and Wild Oats opted to dive inside everyone at the island rounding – could have resulted in some rules incidents if they didn’t make it! We guessed that we came first in our division but weren’t sure with the wrong course boats and everything – just got an email saying we came first in division, and won the regatta overall! There were 70 boats including the aforementioned maxis – a lot more than I expected. How’s that for a beautiful Friday afternoon’s sailing.

thought it was us in the middle but it's not, probably us on the far right though only have tiny clues

The corporates turned up with little banners they hung all over the rails – terrible windage – and 2.5 cases of beer which really had us worried they would try and drink 10 each. We made them wait until the first downwind leg, then they put away 3 over the leg and just kept going from there, no-one fell off thankfully. We consummate professionals wait until after the race, and also got to take home 6 they left behind…. it was a big day for beer once I had watched the rugby with Dad and Boy as well. I would love to play rugby, they just look so ridiculously fit and confident out there, but I don’t know when that will ever happen in my life. And most of the women’s teams are a little bigger than me.

Tomorrow is club racing and today I was meant to be coaching juniors at WSC – turned out they told me the wrong weekend – so I walked back to our Bondi Junction house, it was such a beautiful day I wanted to be outside rather than catching the bus. Didn’t take any shoes but my sailing boots to wear though! – and some heels for a party tonight which would have been worse. It is amazingly crisp, sunny, clear and a light wind, the most beautiful Sydney weather. The end of an early morning run this week:

I lost my post while editing it…. bugger. Oh well this is vegetarian society lunch, or, my university is more hipster than yours. I also went to Hermann’s with the Philosophy Society. They were having a committee stoush over certain people making decisions, use of emails, etc trivial things. It was heartening in light of the sailing club having occasional differences when we run a way, way more complicated operation. Though a little bit of drama can be good for a committee, the emotional arousal probably gets their subconscious to think the club is more important in their life than it was before.

The rest of my post said that the builders have come and started tearing up the kitchen. We got very tired last week moving everything out, and then they turned up and said we didn’t have to yet – fairly annoying – the ‘kitchen guy’ won’t be ready with the new one for a few weeks so they are going to lay the floor first and apparently leave the dishwasher and oven in situ for most of that. Mostly the interior designer’s fault, he doesn’t seem to be as good a project manager.

Now I have two assignments due on Monday and have spent way too much time writing, but when so many of you (ha) check it so often, I am motivated to write stuff, so it’s your fault. I have to do a lot of assessments alone or do more while everyone else is doing groupwork because of my stupid ‘masters’ degree so I’m a bit snowed under at the moment. But I have met some of the other masters students and even did the FOB thing and took pictures of one of their books the other day. Picture is our lab last week, none of these pissy little test tube experiments for us, it’s all about shattering large concrete things. Exciting. Time for me to work. Reinforced concrete is hard – or our lecturer is crap – mostly the latter I suspect.