Confessions of a Young Green

Hey, I've got a friend who's going through some rough times at the moment and it's come to a head this weekend. Are there any good counselling services in the inner south which are open on Sundays? I heard Greenslopes Hospital might be an option.

Thanks heaps.

It is pissing down rain at the moment, everything is orange and Cam has the camera in Far North Queensland. Darn.

Thanks to Luisa for tipping me off that there was a storm on its way. I managed to ride home dry and get the washing off the line.

The Head of School has just forwarded an email from a new Maths group at Oxford detailing the positions they have on offer both for research and administrative staff. The research is mostly at the post-doctorate level but there are a few post-graduate (PhD) level positions which look interesting. This, in particular, interests me greatly because my supervisor and I were kicking around the idea of doing a tear-film dynamics project for my Honours thesis. It wouldn't have worked, though, because I would need to have done the Fluids unit in my first semester of Honours which just wasn't possible without taking six months off or enrolling in Honours part-time.

The project I linked to is bloody interesting. Not only would I have to come up with the mathematical model governing the distribution of tear but the biologically significant distribution of lipids (whoa, we're really testing my high school chemistry knowledge) which continues to move upwards even when the eyelid has come to a stop. To solve these equations, there'd be a bit of numerical work and a bit of what's called "asymptotic analysis" which is what we've been doing with Lord Farrell and Moby this semester. If I ever gain enough confidence in my mathematical ability to apply for a post-grad position at Oxford, this is the project I'd do. Cam would also be over the moon at the chance to live in England. We could go and visit her relatives in their country cottage.

Jane said that I should try and write "everyday" updates, as I assume she has said to Michael as well, and I think in doing so it will help me feel less disconnected from the world with Cam away.

As I said earlier, my code is working.  I've got a few results for a few simulations now and it's just a matter of fiddling around with parameters and seeing what looks interesting and what it means.  Once that's done, I'll be writing like a madman and comparing it to the maths which I've neglected over the last few weeks as Tim and I have struggled to debug my code.  I've mentioned to a few people now, Chris and Elliot in particular, that there should be rolling Honours projects where each student under the wing of a particular supervisor is given the code base for a PDE solver and told to keep working on it until it does everything it's meant to with heaps of options.

CBDBUG organised a protest ride for this afternoon to call attention to the lack of bike paths, bike lanes and just general bike friendly infrastructure on the Northside.  The ride had been organised about a month ago but the recent news of a motorist causing a 50-cyclist pile-up which included past and future Olympic and Commonwealth Games athletes has helped galvanise people into turning up today.  We had about 25 riders and set out from the corner of Bowen Bridge Rd and Gregory Tce, riding as far as the Shell service station approaching Newmarket Rd.  Reactions from motorists included bemused smiles, waves, shaking of heads and "You're all going to f'ing die you f'ing c's".  The organisers thought it was a pretty successful ride (maybe they'll come on Critical Mass rides now) and will probably organise more "family friendly" protest rides on weekends.  Personally, I believe peak hour is the best time for protest rides in terms of visibility (lots of motorists) and low traffic speed (lots of motorists).

Luisa and I had a bit of a chat today about Nine Inch Nails.  They've released their last two albums online for free which means I'm able to get my angsty brooding ambient-synth-rock fix without breaking the law.  Ghosts and The Slip are very interesting, musically.  There's a wide range of sounds from marimba and pulsating synths to angry folk-funk with banjos and thumping basslines.  They're licensed under a Creative Commons license so it shouldn't be too hard to track them down on filesharing networks.

The weekend cometh and with it cometh a lot of uni work, food shopping and wondering where my life went.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Cam's been gone for three days now and, no, the house isn't any messier.  The dishes get done, the cooking gets done and washing clothes is being put off until weekends because someone nicked some stuff off the line during the day when I wasn't at home.  I've been eating fairly well but a bit later in the evening because I am spending a bit more time during the afternoon working on my thesis.

I skipped out on board games tonight even though I did turn up in my reflective sash bearing board games and a book for Luisa.  It's a sad reality but I simply don't have the mental space for socialising too much at the moment (although I did get to hang out with Bec and Nicole today, which was awesome).  I go to bed thinking of maths, I wake up thinking of maths and I think of maths while I ride.  On the train I could distract myself with reading but I'm taking Cam's parting advice and getting up early and riding in straight away so I don't potter about at home and waste an hour or two online.

My code is working.  This means I can move on to the "generating results" stage of my project even though I've got a bit more analytical stuff to do.  There's still heaps of writing to do but it's mainly fleshing out the introduction, adding in the results (and pretty graphs) and writing the conclusion.  Thank goodness the groundwork has been laid in the writing otherwise I'd be completely overwhelmed.

People ask me what I'm doing once I'm finished Honours but that seems so far away.  It's like trying to forecast what the sharemarket will be like in 50 years time.

Calling all cyclists who are fed up with Local and State Government failures to provide safe and direct routes for Brisbane cyclists.

Detours of bikeways due to major infrastructure projects like the North South Bypass Tunnel, AirportLink and Northern Busway are severely impacting upon the ability of cyclists to ride in safety, particularly on Brisbane's north side - which is already poorly served for cycling access.

A protest ride is being organised by the Central Business District Bicycle User Group (CBDBUG) to highlight the frustrations of cyclists and the dangers we face.

Time: Friday 9 May 2008. 4:15pm for a 4:30pm start.

Meeting Point: Corner Gregory Tce and Bowen Bridge Rd Herston

Route: Bowen Bridge Rd Herston to Federation St Lutwyche and back to Gregory Tce (Total Distance: 3km)

The ride is pro-cycling, not anti-infrastructure development (although we would like a more balanced development)

A media release will be organised as part of the protest, highlighting these issues - we need a decent turnout by cyclists riding on the day to really make our point.

The ride will not go ahead unless we have at least 20 confirmed starters, so please RSVP to John Lister on john@whcp.com.au or 0428 667 827 by Wednesday 7 May 2008.

All riders must adhere to Qld Road Rules and ensure that you:

• Wear an approved and fastened bike helmet at all times


• Have a bell or horn in working order


• Do not ride more than two abreast

For more information on the CBD BUG visit us at http://www.cbdbug.org.au or email convenors@cbdbug.org.au

Cam's arrived safely in Pormpuraaw and lives within about 100m of everything in the town. She's staying (with a friend) at one of the teachers' houses; there's no phone line there (!) so she's going to have to internet and telephone from the school if you're wanting to contact her. She's told me she's going to be LJing but will keep the education blog updates for when she returns so she doesn't feel stressed out about them.

Interesting things about Pormpuraaw: the road which runs through the town divides the town between the Wik and Thaayorre peoples and their language groups (Peter has this map on his wall).  The kids from the different groups don't get along all that well apparently. There's a dog problem (similar to the one on Thursday Island, I'd assume) and the entire area is a dustbowl. They're right on the coastline and there's a crocodile farm as well as wild estuarine crocodiles. Apparently the stars are really pretty, which doesn't surprise me given that the town is so far away from bright city lights.

I'm really hanging out for photos.

Notorious party lad Corey Worthington has joined the Big Brother household. You know you can always trust commercial television to come up with the most braindead ideas and push them over the airwaves as being "edgy" and "innovative".  It will make them a few dollars in advertising and will get their ratings up but is incredibly stupid.

Big Brother, and most reality TV, has taken the place of documentaries which show us what life is like in other parts of the world.  Where once Frank Warwick's "World Around Us" would show us what life's like for Tigers in Thailand we instead have "dickhead" Kyle Sandilands asking a juvenile offender what he expects from living in a controlled environment which we're expected to believe mimics real life.

This has got to be the worst shit ever.

My dad and his cousins have finally seen their plan come to fruition; at least 100 Cliffords getting together to meet up with each other and share in the history of the family.  Invitations were sent out to all the descendants of my great-grandfather Cornelius Clifford and a few of the descendants of his brothers' families were there as well.  I was tired by the time I got there having been to the markets that morning and attending Janey's awesome Star Wars birthday the day before (where I came as an insufferable nerd, apparently).  Cam and I were roped into singing/playing "Danny Boy" after Communion and Cam did a totally awesome job on the high notes.

It was fairly easy to tell who was who because one of my second cousins had organised for each family group to wear a certain colour and nametags.  One of the O'Brien families had the good sense to put their lineage on their nametags so you could see where they fit in the family tree.  After the service we went to the church hall for a very meat-intensive lunch and to catch up with everyone.  I totally forgot that one of the guys I went to high school with was a distant cousin and it was good to catch up with him from both a family and a school peer point of view.

I think of the Cliffords as being based in Rockhampton as it's where my grandparents settled to finish raising their kids but this isn't really the case.  Dad's grandad, Cornelius, raised his family in Brisbane, though, at 530 Kingsford Smith Drive and he died at Burnie Brae, Chermside, and is buried at Dutton Park (as far as I can recall).  There are also Cliffords based in Ipswich as a result of Cornelius' owning a shop, being a jockey and working with horses.  There were plenty of old photos of Cornelius' family and while they weren't the landed gentry of the English Cliffords (who are descended from those who came from France with William the Conqueror) they looked as though they were able to support themselves quite comfortably.

I've got a handful of Clifford first cousins in Brisbane who live quite nearby so we'll have to organise to see them, particularly as one of them has the most beautiful daughter who looks like a spitting image of my Nana when she was about five years old.  I would've liked to stay and chat last night with those who ended up back at my parents' place, particularly my 80-something year old nana (who will talk politics with me for hours) and Scott, who was apparently keen to talk to me about my being a member of the Greens.  We had to get home, though, to finish packing for Cam's trip to Pormpuraaw.

Spent Saturday with Cam, Nicole, neonbug  and guybrush_lustri . We went to see Keating! at QPAC and found it uproariously funny, particularly the part where Bob Hawke makes his way down to the stage and decided to sit on Nicole's lap. Nicole tells me she "dreamed" of Bob Hawke last night which sounds a bit suss if you ask me.

We had lunch beforehand at Piaf on weisslulu's recommendation. It's a sort of French-Asian fusion restaurant with exceptionally good prices. I'll definitely be going back for the coffee in massive cups.

After the show we all came back to Casa Del Bam for curry and games. Chris and Nicole got to play Settlers of Catan for the first time and both picked it up pretty quickly; Nicole came very, very close to winning. We also managed to get in a few rounds of Articulate and Ex Libris. I finished Ex Libris with the final line from a Sherlock Holmes book as "Book 'em, Danno".

Got up incredibly early this morning to go to the markets and was rewarded with delicious apples and bread (Pasta Dura, which isn't too crusty, Luisa) and raw milk. The coming week's meals will include more gnocchi, (not cream of) zucchini soup and leftover lemon potato curry. I've got to stop buying so many bananas because I've got about 20 in the freezer which will need to be made into banana bread.

We probably spend an absolute packet on food (organic ) but it's definitely worth it when you're cooking meals from scratch.  This week we've had Kangaroo mince curry, spinach pie, potato gnocchi (very easy to make, it turns out) and cream of zucchini soup tonight.  The fruit we get is fantastic, too; fuji and pink lady apples, lady finger bananas, seedless flame grapes, pears.

I'm thankful that we can afford to eat the way we do and it's probably down to the fact that we don't go out often, watch DVDs on the computer rather than going to the cinema and don't own a car.

I was just thinking the other night that we eat exceptionally well for a pair of students in terms of quality of ingredients, diversity and quality of dishes and the nutrition we get.  Yes, we're both a little overweight but it's more to do with our indoor board gaming lifestyle and lack of exercise (I haven't been riding as much as I could have this past week) than with eating crap.

I probably shouldn't eat as much teppanyaki as I do at uni; I should substitute coffee for tea (and socialise in the staff room rather than the café); I should ride in every single day (and exercise on weekends) and I should probably prioritise the eating of food we buy so we don't finish the week with stale sourdough, squishy pears and over-ripe bananas.

I'm getting back in to Squarepusher at the moment and am watching some videos on Youtube of him playing live. It's amazing; he plays the massively complex bass lines from his studio albums on a real life bass guitar on stage.

The front page of my group blog has just been inundated with some posts from me about the BCC elections of this weekend. I was going to put it all in one post but have decided to split it up into bite sized chunks with a common theme for each post. The election has profound implications for Brisbane's future and we need to all work out what we can do to keep Newman from ruining the city.

For your reading pleasure:

1. Results


2. What Went Wrong?


3. Ramifications


4. Where to from here?


5. Voting Reform

Head of ABC Child Care Centres, Eddy Groves, is a fat Chris Taylor (Chaser).

ABC News on ABC Learning.

Cam and I have been meaning to get out for walks through natural environments recently so today we packed a pull-apart loaf and some fruit and headed out to Boondall.  We took our bikes on the trains with the intention of going along the Boondall bike track to the mouth of Nudgee Creek and the bird watching point.  We only managed to get to the first of the two bird hides, though, which was a 2km circuit walk through a mosquito-infested Casuarina forest (RID is awesome).  It's a really lovely environment, particularly after all the rains we've been having.  The salt marshes are quite pretty with their little algal pools and the flowers are starting to grow back after the prolonged drought.  We saw a number of different birds; Eastern Curlew, Greater Egret, Mangrove Heron, White-faced Heron, some ducks, Ibis and a few gulls.

It doesn't sound much but it was really nice to just get out away from shopping centres, people and the rest of the modern world and just spend some time looking at birds, butterflies, dragonflies, water-skimmers, and plants and trees.  Boondall wetlands are great, there are melaleuca, casuarina, mangroves, salt flats, mud flats.  Cam and I were debating what sort of students you'd take to the wetlands and they'd have to be high school biology or geography students because primary school students would be too loud (we were taken out, though).  I then retold the story of the Year 10 Geography excursion to Noosa where a few of the jocks decided it'd be a riot to pee in the fuel tank of their canopied boat.  Nice one, guys.

The ride from the station takes you under and next to the Gateway Motorway which is interesting; at least it provides a safe commuting route between Boondall station and the wetlands area.  We just missed the train on the way home so I decided to try and ride back to Wooloowin (Cam wasn't so keen) but rode over a screw just north of Northgate station so that put an end to that idea (I was really enjoying it, too).  I ended up on the same train back as Cam and it finally started raining just as we were getting home (it had been threatening to all day).

We're going to try to get out to Chermside Hills Reserve at some point but it's in a public transport black hole.  The only buses that go past are BCC school bus routes and it's pretty much half way between the Ferny Grove and Caboolture lines at Mitchelton and Geebung (which are nowhere near each other).  We can take the bus to Chermside but then we've got no way to get to the reserve. :(

Cam's got some photos on her computer which I'll get her to upload to Flickr so I can share them with you lovely people.

At the AFK board games meet the other night I mentioned a game I played during my primary school days at an "after school care" place.  The game was called "Labyrinth" and involved navigating a moving map to collect treasure.  I was flicking through Wikipedia this afternoon and found out that it won a Spiel des Jahres award in 1991 for "most beautiful game".  Wicked.  I loved that game and was fairly good at it, too. Go, go gadget visual-spatial and complex thinking skills!

Had Nicole over for dinner (curry) last night before going to the Milton Bowl "Alley Bar" to see Rob's band "Lord Byron" for the third time.  When Cam, Nicole and I got there we decided to hang around outside with a certain goon on her advice that the first few bands weren't very good.  Managed to run in to the rest of the maths contingent turning up: Bess, Jess, Dan, Peggy, Jon (and Steve), David (and Brian), Bec/Steve, Rachel and Jake.

The music was a bit loud so we left part of the way through Triplickit's set (which I was sad to miss) and played a round of Bowling with Dan and Peggy in the adjoining bowling alley.  Very interesting making the jump from Wii to real bowling; Dan made the comment that he's probably no good at tennis, boxing or golf either if bowling is so much harder than it looks.  A few of the others came out to get away from the noise in the bar so we hung around the lanes and had people showing off their new Lord Byron shirts (I bought one later, too, just to follow the trend).  Speaking of shirts, we got Dan this shirt which I would think is suitable attire for the night.  While we were coming back to the gig I managed to bump in to a friend (Matt) from first year engineering who first introduced me to goth clubs and a different music scene. He only lives a few suburbs away so we'll be catching up soon, no doubt.

Lord Byron's set was fantastic even though it was cut short.  The problem with playing last seems to be that even though lots of people come to see you, the management are quite happy to kick you off stage at the gazetted finishing time.  Lord Byron really had to power through their set after starting later than they would have liked and as a result had to cut quite a number of songs from their set list.  Still, it was an absolutely awesome performance (as it always is) and the band ought to be commended on putting on a very entertaining and animated show.  Every time Elspeth played a solo the crowd cheered justifiably, she's an absolutely amazing guitarist, the next Brian May.  Rob was his usual virtuosic self and I think both his skills and his personality keep the band together.  When the management refused to let the band play one last song (as they'd only performed a handful) the vocalist was quite, uh, vocal, in making it known that he thought this was a bad decision.  Rob was as cool as a cucumber, though, and was quite gracious when the band were finally allowed another song on the back of cheers and calls from the crowd.

Go and see Lord Byron when you next get the chance.

We're in Sydney at the moment to help Cam's parents with some end of year stuff and an early Christmas lunch.  Weather's not looking great but at least it's nice and cool.  Not sure when we're free yet but if you're in Sydney and want to catch up, we're around.  We'll be back in early to mid January, too.

I have bread!  It's probably the most successful texture so far, nice and open crumb, very soft.  The preferment worked a treat in terms of creating bubbles and I only had to use 1/4 tsp of yeast instead of a full teaspoon.  I think I should've put it in the fridge last night because while it rose very well, it tastes a bit beery.  This means the yeasts got through a bit too much of the flour and my options are either a shorter rise, a slower rise (colder temp) or less yeast.  I did all the mixing in a bowl rather than kneading on the bench simply because there was so much water in the dough; it's the wettest dough I've made and it turned out pretty well.

I should do more beignets over the summer holidays.