Structure of Language ( Linguistics )

I'm sitting in CLB on the lower ground level waiting to go into my first linguistics lecture of the year. 

Some of you may remember that I tried thus in 2010, but because of ending up four weeks behind in all of my subjects, dropped this one, so here I am attempting it again in 2012.

New enrollments for 2012.

My enrollments to return to UNSW next year open, for me, on Nov. 30, and while this is late, most likely because I am an under achieving student, I hope that I am able to secure places in the subjects I choose, which are:

• EDST1101 Educational Psychology 1 (6 UOC)
• EDST1104 Social Perspectives in Educ. (6 UOC)
  Creative Writing - ENGLW23403
  Linguistics - LINGA24054

I've got this funny feeling about Linguistics, I don't know why, but I do ~

As for the other three, I'm actually looking quite forward to them.

Strangers in a photo ...

Haven't you ever wondered who those strangers in the back of your photos are?

Or indeed, wondered in how many photos it is you that is the stranger in the back of another persons photos?

There must be so many.

Wouldn't that make a great movie, though? (If it hasn't already).

I'd like to see that movie ... I'd like to make that movie.

- Ian.

Flash cards!

are a great way of teaching yourself. :-)

and as for free software flashcards that don't have to make yourself, I recomend: http://www.byki.com/ (byki is short for Before You Know It).

It's not going to sink in over-night, but you'll understand it eventually.

Good luck!

- Ian.

I'm thinking of dropping Linguistics ... so I've got more time for studying Korean.

When I first started at UNSW this year, I was lacking a fourth subject, but because of something the Korean lecturer said in week one, I was able to sign up to Linguistics before the first lecture had begun.

Anyhowz ... in the beginning we had one, rather entertaining person, as our Linguistics lecturer, and another, rather dull person, as our tutor.  It has since come to pass that the entertaining person has received a summons from a higher power within the university to do some sort of double checking and signing off on paper work, leaving us with the rather dull tutor, as our rather dull lecturer.

And as much as I'm enjoying the content of the course, I probably didn't do myself any favours by holding off on not only buying most of my text books until I'd found somewhere more permanent (which I now have), thereby putting myself three weeks behind the work schedule.

And as much as I love Korean, it just isn't. Sinking. In! ... so I'm really going to try and put as much of my efforts as possible into learning that, as it's a subject I want to do really well at ... or at the very least, pass.

As good as the prescribed text book and accompanying exercize book are for the subject, I've been thinking about going that extra mile and purchasing a book from the on-campus book store called something like "Korean in Easy Steps" ... which I was going to link you to using my Amazon Associates account, but as I can't seem to find the book on Amazon right now (which may have something to do with not remembering its exact title) but as that is not currently not a possibility, you'll just have to wait ... because I really don't wanna have to go all the down to the bookshop just so I can find out the name of it, so I can look it up on Amazon, and then post the link here.

I'll just remember what it's called next time - heck, I might even buy it next time.

The Computer Fair! (Which was at the Roundhouse here at UNSW on March 21)

Yes, that's a Sunday!

I was after an extra gigabyte of ram for my netbook, so I asked one of the vendors there, and he didn't know, so I asked another one and he got me to open it up first, to check what sort of RAM it needed.  After opening it, he noted it only had one slot, and that I would have to buy a 2GB stick of RAM to increase it to 2GB, which didn't bother me.  He asked me to turn my computer on to see if it worked, and it did, with a marginal, but noticeable speed increase.

I gave him the $60, he closed up the computer, gave me a receipt and I went on my way.

Between arriving at the fair, and getting my RAM I saw someone I thought looked familiar, so I went out to check if it was them or not - it was.  She hadn't gone into the fair, for not realising that students get free entry and leaving her student card at home.  And she rather waited for her friend to go and do what he needed to do rather than pay the rather minimal entry fee ... was it $5 or less?

- Ian (the guy in the Mario hat)

p.s. Okay, so this blog is hardly written in chronological order of the events of the day, but ... meh! :P XD
(If you want me to write more coherently, please say so).

"uniwide" down again. -_-;

"uniwide" is the name UNSW give to their university-wide wireless internet network.  It allows freedom from having to be restricted to a computer in the library for the duration of an hour - you can be on your own computer for as long as you like! (Class dependant, of course).

Unfortunately, a few weeks ago it was down for about two days total, and it seems to be down again.

I went to the IT crowd to see what they would say, and they said there us maintenence being carried on uniwide today, which would hopefully be resolved "soon" (by the end of the day). 

So I hope that when I come to universtiy tomorrow that the problem has been resolved.

Sometimes it's hard to be alone ...

These are the lyrics of the song "In My Heart" by "Three Dog Night", and here is the film clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySvuJRz8CAw




In my life
I've had to try to make it on my own.
Sometimes it's hard to be alone.
In my mind,
My loneliness would never seem to end.
Something is happening that I don't understand.

(Chorus) In my heart, I feel the heat
Of something burning deep inside of me.
I'll be the man that I could never be,
Now that I've found you.
In my heart, I realize
You are the light that opened up my eyes.
You are the answer and the reason why
I'm living my life for you.

Through my eyes,
I've seen a world that no one's ever seen.
Seems like I've lived inside a dream.
In my dreams
I never thought I'd have someone who cared.
Then you walked in my life, and made me so aware.

(Chorus)

And if my world should fall apart,
I know that you will be there... In my heart.

(Chorus, repeat)


=====


And it is with by far the first verse of this song that I can relate to the most, for that just seems to be the path of this student; wondering down this lonely path all by myself, wondering if anyone will ever care to join my journey with me.


As for the minute, my classmates and I are just ships passing in the night, sailing down a common stream.


I sometimes wonder if any of my classmates will, over the years, become a bigger, more important part of my life than they at the moment.


Sometimes I feel like I connect with people, and then a time comes when you and that person are no longer a part of one another's lives, and I just ... find it so hard to let go ... while I watch our two, once parallel paths, divide as I go one way and they go another.


But I j want to let it be known, to all of the people who have come into my life and gone ... I Will Remember You (By Sarah McLachlan)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHooH4464dQ&feature=fvst

I will remember you
Will you remember me?
Don't let your life pass you by
Weep not for the memories

I'm so tired but I can't sleep
Standin' on the edge of something much too deep
It's funny how we feel so much but we cannot say a word
We are screaming inside, but we can't be heard

But I will remember you
Will you remember me?
Don't let your life pass you by
Weep not for the memories

I'm so afraid to love you, but more afraid to loose
Clinging to a past that doesn't let me choose
Once there was a darkness, deep and endless night
You gave me everything you had, oh you gave me light

And I will remember you
Will you remember me?
Don't let your life pass you by
Weep not for the memories

And I will remember you
Will you remember me?
Don't let your life pass you by
Weep not for the memories
Weep not for the memories 


... I'll keep you posted.


- Ian (The guy in the Mario hat).

Teacher's Strike!? LOLz!!!

After the past few weeks, people have been standing at the various entrance ways to UNSW handing out leaflets fore telling of the upcoming teachers strike (Today - Thursday, March 18, 2010).

The leaflet had brief sentences on it stating the reasons for the strike (something about fairer conditions and more money).

A few days ago, I, and the entire student population of UNSW received an email stating the University's fear of the upcoming strike and the confidence that it would not go ahead.

Given the severely large number of people that are here, I dare say the few teacher's that did strike - if any - are feeling rather foolish for themselves right now.

My Grandmother's Funeral (and thank God for facebook).

A part of a students life, as well as studying, is the unexpected events that life can bring such as the death of a loved one; last year it was my sisters beloved cat, Basil.  This year it was my 92 year old Grandmother, who, by the way, was in a state of perfect health, and on the night of Thursday the 11th of March, slipped away quietly in her sleep.

Her funeral was the following Wednesday (Yesterday, as of my typing this), and I had to fly back to my home to town to attend which included the missing of some classes, but as they were all lectures, it hardly really matters all that much.

At the funeral were family members, who, if not for my telling them through facebook would have perhaps never have known, which made me all that much happier that I found them on facebook when I did a few months ago.

One Aunt was considering not showing up for fear that her ex (my biological uncle) would be there and cause havoc, however, that particular uncle's last words to his mother were something along the lines of "I don't have a mother any more."

Thankfully, the aunt and her five children showed up, with the sorry excuse of an uncle nowhere to be seen.

After all was said I done I took the afternoon flight back here to Sydney.

Wasting paper.

Whoops!

It seems that rather than thinking things through, and realising that I need only print one of the two text books for Korean A (The exersizes one), I not only printed both, but did so single sidedly.  That is to stay, instead of thinking to print not only the one of the two text books, but I also failed to think that I could have printed them either double sided, or as a booklet, there by saving quite a lot of paper.

"Booklet" would have been ideal, as a total of four pages would have printed double sided on one A4 piece of paper, so the pile would have been small enough for me to staple together.

I now find myself stuck with an almost two ince pile of A4 paper!

"If I could turn back time ~ if I could find a way ~" - Cher.

I'm sure I would have come to that conclusion before printing had I have had a more decent nights sleep. >.<;

Read my previous post http://tinyurl.com/yjx6s8l to see what I'm referring to in regards to "a more decent nights sleep."

I've applied for new accommodation.

After the landlady not being able to sign the Rent Assistance Certificate, and especially after being accused of clogging the toilet, I went on the hunt for new a new place to live, regardless of how much extra it cost.

I remembered a place I'd seen when I was looking on domain.com.au before ... it was a share house, but each room has its own en-suite and bar fridge - the rent is an extra $65/wk, but I thought it was worth to get out of a place where I have people accusing me of toilet clogging, and act as if their above certain house rules (more on that in a later post).

So, after a few days back and forth with the real estate, as I got various paper work sorted to show them, I have been told that I'll know this coming Monday (March 15) if my application has been successful.

Apparently the owners were a little concerned as to my incoming money, as the money gets taken directly out of my bank account one calendar month in advance from the date I'll potentially be moving in (The 18th).

So ... wish me luck on a successful application!

Thank you.

Moving tomorrow ...

This time tomorrow I'll be in my new house, with my fellow students.

I'm living in a house that, at the most, is a twenty minute walk to/from the uni, which is much better than last years forty-five minute walk.  What this basically means is that now, in cases where I have large gaps between the end of one class and the beginning of the next, I can go home and either study or have a rest.

I don't understand paragraphs.

Looks like I'll be getting employment, too ... maybe.

Given that university is starting this Monday, I'll hopefully have more posts, more frequently for you starting very soon.

- Ian.

Applying for Austudy.

Well, today I applied for Austudy, and after printing, filling out, and returning the three final forms* , my application will be complete.

*One for Proof of Identity; one to say how much rent I'll be paying; and one to give another person permission to do dealings with Centrelink on my behalf.

It's a bit of a pain, as I don't currently have any accommodation lined up in Sydney, so filling out that form will be impossible, and I have to have the forms lodged by the February 18.

What am I going to do?

I'll keep you posted.

UNSW Teaching Period 1 begins on the March 1.

So it seems that UNSW is starting early this year, as in other years, it hasn't started until about the second or third week of March.

And I still haven't found a place yet.

My Life As A Student - Part One.

Originally, I applied for Program Leave for two semesters, but after one semester felt in myself that it was okay for me to go back.

I emailed the university (UNSW) enquiring about the possibility of returning after only one semesters leave, and was given permission to return.

Subjects for this semester include:

Concepts of Asia

Introduction to Film

Psychology

and I'm having a bit of trouble getting into English - Narrative, as it doesn't seem to know whether it's full or not; I've contacted the university about this problem, and am waiting for their reply.