thustin

It's been a while. Maybe that's because I haven't been angry enough to feel the need to write. Or maybe life in general just wasn't interesting enough. Whatever the reason, I'm back. 

I'm talking about the whole "boat people" beat up. I'm not normally political, especially not in the partisan sense, but now I feel the need to expose the BS I've been seeing on TV lately. (Normally I don't have the patience for TV, but I'm sick at the moment, so it seemed like a good way to pass the time... wrong)

Stop the boats? Sorry, it's too late for that. Also, the technology doesn't exist to send us back in time and stop the First Fleet from coming to Australia, anyway.

But apparently these new boat people are the naughty kind, who don't like standing in queues. Sorry, but if you're going to risk to your life on a boat trying to escape from your country - it might be that the "queue" was a pretty dangerous place to be. 

Actually, of all the illegal immigrants in Australia, 1 in 10 are asylum seekers. The rest are people who overstay their visas i.e. British or American visitors. I didn't know the British or Americans had also been naughty? Nobody told me - I found that out when I visited the Immigration Museum recently. As usual, it seems the media wants to sell a story and the information gets lost in the hype and the hysteria of Today Tonight et al.

Oh wait, I think I know. It's cos they're WHITE, isn't it? Except they probably don't come on boats like our ancestors, they can probably fly here like good civilised people. They don't jump queues, because good, white people wouldn't do that. (The probably have the money, too, eh?)

I agree that Australia needs a sustainable population. As a engineer (in 6 months time), I understand that we're basically screwed, on account of all the looming problems with water and energy scarcity. Throw in climate change and the inequitable distribution of resources in the world, and we're already in a real pickle. We'd already be in a pickle if Australia's population weren't increasing, but the growth does exacerbate things.  

But if we're so worried about Australia's population, why are we giving money out to people to have babies? Seems like a bit of a contradiction to me. I know having a baby is expensive. But if they're really serious about about controlling Australia's population, maybe they should stop buying votes off would-be parents?  Wait, wait... oh right, it's cos they're WHITE would-be parents. And they can also vote, which means they're more important that the boat jumpers or queue people we dislike so much.

I'm just disgusted with all sides of politics and particularly the media. I'm going to do my best to avoid getting sick again, because if I have to put up with more nonsense like this, I might as well take one of these boats and head somewhere else. I'm not sure if Australia was always this racist - maybe it was more back in my parents' time.  Who knows. 

But as an essentially immigrant country, I'd appreciate it if we would just cut the BS and take a good hard look at ourselves. The only boat people I'm concerned about are the ones who are adamant we should stop the boats. Pretty greedy really. 

-thustin

 so it's been a while. final year engineering is crazy, you hear? i've had no time for this writing business... but anywho, i had a dream this morning. well i woke up at 8 cos my alarm was set for then, but i was still tired so i went back to bed. then i had this weird dream about some friends from uni. we were in this middle eastern restaurant for some reason, i don't remember eating or anything sensible like that. Vicky wanted to get a car, but had just lost her job and it was mean. Andrew, Mohamed and I were talking in this restaurant about random things, but I've forgotten what they were. We were all facing the same direction as if it were a lecture...weird. 

So anyway, that's what I got. I'll probably be too busy to post again for a while. Oh well.

-Thustin

Hi all,

I've been so busy lately. Last time I thought of posting, I was going to mention having feast at our house, which I really enjoyed because everyone seemed to have a good time, and it felt really spiritual. Also, while I was in Canberra visiting family, I bought a warhammer game for 5 bucks, but that doesn't seem so relevant right now. I haven't used it yet since I've been so busy with working at Bio21 and various Baha'i stuff. 

It's really hot tonight, I've got the fan on trying to keep me cool, but I might have to open a window as well. Yeah, now the main difference is that everything is moving around the room. But it's better than being hot I guess. 

I've been going to devotional meetings a lot in the past couple of weeks, since there's an intensive teaching campaign on at the moment. We had two at our house as well, and it was nice. At the one I went to tonight I was the only non-relative, and at the one yesterday I was the only non-persian. It was fun though, because they both had heaps of food, and then we talked for ages, mainly in farsi. Well, they talked in farsi, and said some words in farsi. There's a difference, you know.

But yeah, now I need to go to gym to get into shape before uni starts. Uni starts in about a week! holy ayatollah! It's going to be full on, but at least I've been working over the summer, so my brain didn't turn to mush this time around. On the other hand, maybe I don't have enough energy for uni?  I probably do, I only have one year to go, then I'm done. I'll keep telling myself that, and it'll be over before I know it. 

Well that's about all I got right now.

Adios, amigos. 

-Thustin

Well, a new year is upon us. It's the year of the tiger in chinese tradition, and i was born in the year of the tiger. So to make things simpler, i'm renaming it the year of the Justin. I didn't ask, because i didn't think anyone would mind.

I'm in Canberra for family-visiting goodness yet again. Speaking of new years, we drove up here on new year's day. Some may call that a bad idea, since we went out for new year's eve and didn't get home until 1am or something. Nobody set any alarms to wake us up, because mum didn't really care what time we left. My brother and my mum had come in to wake me up cos we had to leave, so i thought i had slept in and was holding everybody up. So i get up, get dressed and lug my bags downstairs to load into the car, only to find that nobody was downstairs. So I set about having breakfast. Later mum came down and I mentioned that she woke me up. It turns out that I had dreamt that part. She woke up when he heard me going downstairs, but everyone else was still asleep.

So after everyone got ready (thanks in part to my clever dream :P) we left at about 10:15am, which is unusual for us. But it doesn't matter that much, it just meant the whole trip was different to those that came before it. Mum started driving first, and about half an hour into the trip, we stopped for a coffee break, cos we were all still tired, lol. We had lunch at the Commercial Club in Albury, instead of McDonalds. I didn't really miss the McDonalds part. :P In NSW they have clubs, where there are pokies, food, billiards and such, which is weird cos we don't seem to have clubs like that in Victoria. So most of my dad's side of the family here are members of clubs... at least the older ones. After lunch I took over driving, and drove the rest of the way to Canberra. So we got to Canberra around 6ish, which isn't too late. Just in time for dinner in fact.

Mum has said, in her mystical all-knowing way, that this is the year of 'doing things differently' because of that experience on new year's day. I don't know what I'm going to do differently this year. I'm going to finish my Engineering course, and I've never done that before, lol. Besides that, I'm not sure. I'll have to figure something out.

Ever since the holidays started I've been eating way too much. This kicked off the day before Christmas eve I think, when I visited Laura randomly, and stayed for dinner. Then there was Christmas Eve, Christmas, Boxing Day, Intermediate days that are still worthy of food, New Year's eve... and now we're in Canberra, there's this unspoken competition going on between my Grandpa and Grandma to see who can feed us the most food :P. It's extraordinarily tasty, but it's a lot of food. And I haven't been exercising to compensate, so I'm going all soft in the middle. XD I better start running or something, or they'll have to roll me back to Melbourne, lol.

well that's all for now, Happy New Year to all who read this, and have happy and safe holidays if you have them.
-thustin

 well, it's 57 minutes past the middle of the night and i can't sleep. it might have something to do with the afternoon nap and cup of tea i had earlier. (the scary clown may have something to do with it, but it's too early to tell.) so i thought, what the hell, might as well jump on the computer and do stuff. i was staring at the moon and the stars for a bit, and while that is interesting, there's only so much twinkling i can take. and the ones that we can see probably don't have planets that can support life anyway, so there's not much in the way of adventures i can conjure up about space creatures either. so here i am. 

christmas, eh? maybe i just haven't been paying attention to the trends over the last 20 or so years, but this christmas i've eaten WAY too much food. i mean there are so many events around this time of year to go to. and most of them involve family and food - massive quantities of which i have no choice but to consume. (food, rather than family - consuming my family would be a bad move.) i've been stuffing myself pretty much every day. i think yesterday (sunday) i took it easy when i had a berocca and a milkshake for breakfast (not together), then i think i just had random snacks until dinner, which was actually substantial. other than that every day's been some kind of celebration - day before christmas eve, christmas eve, christmas, boxing day, today - you get the idea. and then there's new year's eve coming up, but that probably won't be such a massive party because we'll be driving up north on new year's day. all in all, i probably need to go to the gym to work off this excess holiday cheer - it's making me all soft in the middle. :(  and i'm slightly concerned about the capacity of my stomach growing exponentially - something like that can't end well, if only because it can't end. 

on another note, top gear was on tonite, and it was great. i love how those guys rubbish each other so much, and then rubbish cars, and then get excited by cool cars. lionel ritchie was the guest, and he was pretty funny too. i had trouble finding the link for it, because when i searched in google, it kept coming up with the australian version, which is rubbish. i mean, the uk version is the original one, so why would it give me the australian one, if i haven't stipulated that i want australian sites? the thing is, i watch it for the humour, not because i care about cars. in fact, i couldn't give a stuff about cars, it's just that they happen to be the subject matter for a really funny show.  this is where the australian version falls in a great heap, since it just doesn't have the humour factor that the other one does. after top gear, i did a really strange thing, and continued watching television.... :o i watched the mentalist and supernatural, and the strange thing was, they weren't actually that bad. i usually don't watch much tv, cos i think most of it's rubbish and comes across as really patronising. 

i'm on a break from Bio21 at the moment, and i don't go back until the middle of january, so i should have time to rest before going back. having said that, there's heaps i need to read in order to do a literature review... oh well. i haven't been able to summon up the will to start reading cos there's just so much. it seems really daunting even though it's not. 

well that's all i've got for now. adios.

-thustin

Lots going on in my world. I'm meant to be studying for exams, but I'm not going to get much done this weekend. Tomorrow I'm working at the Whittlesea Show, cos we usually set up a stall for the selling of hats. We had the stall today, and it was hot, which is usually good for hat-selling activities. I don't know what the maximum was, since I'm too lazy to watch the weather, but it was the first really hot day in a while. I wasn't working though, I was bumming around, mainly. I slept in, I went to gym, I walked the dog, I put dinner in the oven, and all the gaps were filled in with using the computer. I was doing useful things; I wasn't just looking at lolcats or something to pass the time. But technically they're not essential activities, so the end result is that I didn't study today. 

This summer I'll be doing a research studentship at the Bio21 Institute, which will involve studying how to take the lactose out of milk since people can't handle it, by turning it into soluble fibre, which is apparently super-awesome for your health. It's pretty exciting, but I don't really want to brag because it was really tough to get Vacation Work this year, so I'm just glad I'll be doing something productive at all this summer. Overall I think I made 20-30 applications, and the rejections came in thick and fast. Some of them took a lot of effort, but the applications that were most successful (i.e. leading to an interview) involved only a little effort. The Bio21 thing didn't even involve an interview, but I only found out about it through a contact, one of my lecturers Sally Gras. Actually, I barely had to do anything for the application, except talk about how awesome I am and give the project description below, which Sally provided. It turns out that she'll be my supervisor in the project. For a little while, I couldn't believe I got it at all, seeing as how difficult and unsuccessful most of my other applications were. I thought there were only 5 of these studentships available, so I didn't think I had a chance. I assumed that Sally must have put in a good word for me, and she probably wanted a student working with her anyway.  But oh well.   If you want to read more about the project...

( Engineering Enzymatic Food Chemistry )

In other news, apparently I'm funny.  Or at least, I can make isikenai  and others LOL. I'll keep you updated on that, and try to determine the basis of these allegations. 
 

That's all from me for now.
-Thustin

On the 30th of September (last wednesday week), it was my birthday, and I'd just like to thank all those who wished me a happy birthday.  I had been too busy at the time to respond to everyone individually, but at some point I'll try to reply to everyone.

My grandma (from my dad's side) had come down to visit and she stayed with us for a week. So we had her nice cooking and it was good to have her around for a while.  And on thursday we had extended family over for dinner, which was nice. I ate lots of cake. :-) My dad's cousins who live in Melbourne were there, as well as my great aunt and uncle. It was fun to try talking persian again. We usually don't have large gatherings at our house, so it was good to have that.

Anway, thank you all, and I hope all is well.

-Thustin

Well, I probably didn't say anything about it earlier, but Laura and her parents have gone to New Zealand for 3 weeks. The just left this morning, and I'm minding their house for them while they're away. On account of their animals mainly, but also for security. They have a golden retriever puppy named George, who's just over 1 year old, and a cat named Darcy. I took George for a run/walk today, and it had been wet outside so I got a bit dirty. Nevermind, I had a shower and it was all better again.

Also, I went to the shops to get some new runners, since mine are basically done for, and some cans of soft-drink to take to uni. Runners are expensive. But I tried to justify it to myself, since my old runners were crap, and I need something to walk and exercise in. Except if it's wet, I'll probably just use my old ones, to stop these new ones getting dirty.

So now I'm on my own, looking after myself, like a bachelor and such.  Well actually I'm not completely independent. Laura made a whole bunch of meals for me, which are in the freezer. And her parents gave me some gas money, cos I'm going to be using their car while I'm here.  And they explained all about the house and how to use stuff, and what to do if certain things happen, etc. so I've had a lot of help from them. I just had pumpkin and sweet potato soup, and some bread - it was good.

So I miss Laura already. Even though we spent 3-and-a-half months apart when she was in America, I'm still going to miss her these 3 weeks. I'm at her house, looking after her animals, so everything reminds me of her, as well. Yes, I know, I just saw her this morning. But still. If I can't miss her, then who can I miss?

Anyway, I should probably do some work.

later,
Thustin

hello hello.

It appears that the usb drive that i mentioned buying in my previous post is missing, which is somewhat annoying. I gave one to a uni friend, Scott, and one to Laura, my girlfriend. But the one i kept for me is gone. Maybe I left it at uni somewhere in the last couple of days of semester.

( A bad morning... )

I've been pretty lazy today. not doing very much at all. I did walk the dog this morning, which was about the height of my productivity. Other than that i've just been watching tv and eating. i have eaten my fair share of noodles, since i can't be bothered with anything else. the highlight on tv was what appeared to be a kids' program, but i found it great, nonetheless. (Is there something wrong in that?) It starred Lano and Woodley, of all people.  Of course they were named Steve and Mark or something like that in this show, because I guess kids wouldn't know who they are.... ?  You wouldn't think comedians needed to stoop to daytime tv to make ends meet, but maybe they're doing it just cos they love it.  It was hilarious in any case, and I kind of wish I'd taped it.

That's all for now.

-thustin