Tomorrow is school for me. That sucks. I want another week, I'm not ready for school. Oh well. The sooner I do this year the sooner I am able to be with my Laura for more than just a few days with a few months breaks between. Laura and I have been together for one year and 3 weeks today *is proud* and we're still going strong. We've had many hardships throughout the year, but that's life I guess. For those who don't know, my beautiful girlfriend,  Laura, lives in Cairns and we met through the net [and friends giving us email addresses]. We met in Sydney on 9th and 10th January 2005; that's when we started officially going out. We then spent roughly 8 and a half months apart until on 24th September I caught a plane, for the first time in my life, by myself, to Cairns, where I spent 6 days with my Laura. Those 8 months or so apart from my Laura was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Laura then came down here on 29th December-15th January, but I mentioned that in my other blog so read that one.

 

So...

 

I really dislike it when people rant on about how 'metal music' is the music of the devil. Killswitch Engage, a favourite band of mine, is a metal band and has very powerful messages within their music;

 

     "The time has come to make a difference. Why have we forsaken love?"  -  Rise Inside

     "It won't be long, we'll meet again. Your memory is never passing. It won't be long, we'll meet again. My

      love for your is ever lasting."  -  Rose Of Sharyn

 

How do you explain lyrics like that if metal is supposedly evil music? Wankers. Yes, there are a lot of metal bands out there that only use aggressive, negative lyrics but so what? Isn't that the same as saying every Catholic is evil just because they killed people hundreds of years ago for chosing to be individual? If only the 'bad' or 'gothic' or 'evil' people listen to metal, why is it that more violence, more evil is done by the people who listen to mainstream music? Music has nothing to do with the heart of the person, just their taste; I mean, according to that rule, all people that don't like a certain food can be considered evil. Most of my friends have the same thoughts about this topic so most of you will agree with what I have to say, but for those people who can't see what I'm trying to get at, feel free to ask me, I won't stab you or anything.

 

I'm not too sure what else to write about and I have to get things prepared for tomorrow so I might stop here. Comment me with any opinions, questions or abuse you may have. If you want to abuse me for my thoughts, please leave your adress so I don't have to hunt you down myself to rip out your tongue for being such a wanker. haha Nah I won't mind. Say anything...BOOYAH

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Daniel.

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Welly, I haven't done anything to my blog for a rather long time so I decided to start over. I kept some of the pictures up from one of the jams I had at my place and a few of me but I will be changing all that stuff over.

 

Today is the second-last day of the '05-06 Christmas break. These holidays  have been the best ever. It started off with me cleaning the house...I know it sounds really boring but I enjoyed it for some creepy reason [must be something in the water]. After that,  Christmas came, the family was all together and stuff...awesome time...until one of my dogs, Jack, died by a snake...fucker. On boxing day I wen't back to Newcastle with my sister [where she lives] and spent a few days down there then on the morning of Thursday 29th December I caught a train [for the first time] by myself to the Sydney Domestic Airport to meet up with my beautiful girlfriend, Laura. We then caugt a train back to Newcastle and got driven home by dad. We spent 29th December until the 15th January together where on the 15th we both caught a plane to Sydney for different reasons. She went to Sydney to finish her holiday off with her family there before returning to Cairns a few days Later. I went to Sydney to attend the 9th Indigenous Engineering Summer School [IAESS].

 

I was selected as one of the 20 aboriginal students from throughout Austalia to attend the IAESS. This begun slow and boring as the first day was spent sitting aroung doing nothing. The next day all things started happening. We were introduced formally to the important people in UNSW in our official opening. Then we went to our first UNSW visit; Biomedical Engineering. We learned about the role Biomedical Engineers play in society. After this we went on our first site visit: The new RTA Crashlab. Here we were shown many things including watching an airbag explode, watching one of the crash test-dummies be hit with a lare weight to test strength, watched a motorbike helmet tested for strength and durability and got a few photos taken with a test dummy.

 

The next day we went to UNSW Computer Science and Engineering and UNSW Electrical Engineering & Telecommunications. Here we designed a product from scratch and analysed the role it would play in society and also looked at things in development. After this we went to Energy Australia and visited the tunnels where all the cabling is at. Awesome stuff, one of the transformers weighed 80tonnes and  cost $1,000,000. We left this and went on our way to the Sydney Harbour where we got on a boat and went on a Sydney Harbour Cruise and Dinner.

 

Wednesday started off with UNSW Civil and Environmental Engineering. Our task was to design a bridge out of a limited supply of materials. Our [the "Blue" team] bridge could carry 5kg. This was rather good considering another group only held 3.5kg. After this we went to the Lane Cove Tunnel Site where we met up with the Governer General [Uncle GG] and a media frenzy evolved. This was a waste of time education-wise, the only role this played in the Summer School in my opinion was publicity.

 

Thursday consisted of UNSW Chemical Engineering and Industrial Chemistry, UNSW Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Shopping in Sydney City and best of all, the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb. in UNSW Chemical Engineering and Industrial Chemistry, our task set was to filter water that had been coloured and filled with small amounts of other solids to the cleanest water we could from a limited supply of things and on a certain budget. UNSW Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering showed us a flight simulator and other..stuff I can't remember. The Sydney  Harbour Bridge Climb was incredible, the first leg was over ground...50 metres above ground on a mesh floor. We then begun the decent of the East-Arc. The view was spectacular. We stopped a few times for photos and information. I reccomend it to anybody. Shopping in Sydney City was boring-ish. I bought a DVD [Metallica: Cunning Stunts] and a CD [Slipknot: 9.0 Live] so yeah.

 

Friday has us to go UNSW Photovoltaics & Solar Engery, Renewable Energy first up where our task was to construct a circuit from a solar panel to an appliane, our appliance was a fan. This was stupidly boring for me because I have done this sort of thing many times. Our next stop was UNSW Mining Enginering School and the Australian Mineral Council Visit. This was very strung out and boring. Mining Engineering is one of the highest paid Engineering professions, if you're good you can get in excess of $250,000 a year. We had our photo shoot and went to our Graduation dinner afterwards. This was a great experience even though I chipped my front cap off my tooth on my entree. I talked with a few Civil Engineers about their field and I am going to study Civil Engineering at University.

 

The final day was short. After going to bed at about 2am and getting up at 6:30, I was tired as a motherfucker. We went to the Governer Generals Residency and had our farewell party there. Uncle GG is a very genuine person if  you were to talk to him alone or in a small group, I like him...In my pants. We then left Admiralty House and went to the Airport where we all eventually caught our planes home.

 

The 9th IAESS has opened my eyes to the huge variety of Engineering fields there are. I loved almost all of it.

Diary Entries, Photographs and other details of the 9th IAESS can be accessed from the following website:

  http://www.eng.unsw.edu.au/iaess/2006/

for those who are interested anyway.

 

Well I've written way to much for this entry, for those who read it, feel free to comment and stuff.

For now, I'm done.

 

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Daniel.

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