Vacation Work

The time has come to secure work for the summer vacation... and I'm completely lost. I went to the IEEE networking evening and that sort of made things worse. I realised that I have no idea what I want to end up doing after I finish my engineering degree.

Now I could always take the easy way out and go get some software work, since that's always easy to find, but I've already done plenty of software and really want to get some engineering done before I graduate. The problem is with engineering is that most of it in Perth is very evil. Companies that make ammunition and battleships littered the prospective employers at the networking night, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to be involved with stuff that kills people. Of course many will argue that it's defense and someone needs to do it, but still, I'd prefer it not to be me.

I'm quite interested in the water corporation and the Perth transport authority for these reasons, and I'm currently trying to find out more about what kind of work I'd be doing there. Although, I already know that the water corp pays about $17 an hour, which is pretty much what I'd be getting as a sales person at Tandy, so I guess you need to sacrifice money for morality - great :(

In other news, my car is back, and she's more beautiful than ever! I never realised how much I actually use my car until it was gone for a week and a half. They even vacuumed it for me, which was an unexpected nice suprise! Also, Simona and Chad and their baby Keanu are coming to Perth on the 25th, and Matt's getting the house on the 28th of August. It's Sim's birthday on the 29th and I have no idea what to get her. All this excitement does NOT bode well for my electromag theory test on the 30th...

Kymmy's Gone Again

Last night Kym went back to Ireland for two years :( She's going back to finish her (optometrist) degree, and will be back in Perth after she's done. Hopefully she'll make it back for Christmas as well.

Amy and I stopped by her house last night for some goodbye strawberry cheesecake (any excuse will do), and to see her off to the airport.

We'll miss you Kym! But we know you'll make us proud no matter where you are :)

Car Troubles

I thought I'd wait until it all got sorted out before I posted about my little car accident. I'm currently at uni waiting for Matt to pick me up (I caught a lift in with him since my car is in the shop), and so what better time to write about why that is.

I was in the engineering car park at around 11am. Circling around the pews slowly, I notice a car coming towards me in the opposite direction (in the other lane of course). As we approach each other, he starts to indicate, slows, and then stops. I didn't see the space he was indicating for but I guess it was behind him. I'm still driving forward slowly while he's stopped, which has been for a while now. At this point I'm next to him, when he starts to reverse, turn, and slowly hit the front-right of my car. He didn't actually notice this, and so I beeped my horn. So he stops, and then drives forward again, hitting me a second time (I'm pretty sure this is when my door got dented).

Two and a half weeks, two quotes, and a lot of heated discussion later, he finally came to his senses and wrote the cheque for the full amount (he originally only wanted to accept 80% of the blame for some reason). I guess I should be happy with the fact that this is my first car accident in the uni car parks which are packed with students, mostly P platers, desperately trying to find a spot that doesn't involve trekking for 20 minutes to class.

I get my car back on Friday which is nice and speedy.

My 21st Birthday

Last Saturday night I had a small gathering of family close friends to celebrate my 21st birthday (which is actually today)! It was a really fun night (or so I'm told, I was mostly too busy to notice!) and I'll never forget it :)

I decided to have my party at home this year, and keep it small since our house is spatially limited. My mum worked really hard and managed to turn the garage, which is usually so full of cars and other stuff that you can barely walk through it, into a gorgeous room which I personally thought looked like some sort of Arabian palace. We put some rugs down around the place, and Matt's parents lent me their plastic chairs, so together with a table overflowing with food, we had a nice little party happening :)

I really wanted it to be as fun and non-formal as possible, and so I refused to give/accept speeches/toasts, and insisted on having a pass the parcel and a Pinata to prove that I am NOT an adult no matter what number candle is on my birthday cake. Although I did go a bit far on the dress, but hey, I thought I'd push the boundaries of my usual style and take a risk. Everyone really enjoyed the games, especially the pass the parcel, and especially Stefan who hadn't ever played either game. The pass the parcel was played to Toop Toop by Cassius with me as the music stopper lady person, and Kym won the big prize which was a beer mug filled with chocolates and lollies.

I had the first go at the Pinata, and managed to hit it once (very weakly), and missed for both my other goes. When it was Ashvin's turn, I had to leave the garage to take a phone call from Matt's Nonna, and when I came back everyone was crawling on the floor. I assumed everyone had gone crazy, but then I noticed that there was chocolate everywhere and the Pinata was no longer hanging from the ceiling but was in pieces on the floor. I was really upset that I didn't get to see what happened until Matt came running up to me to show me the awesome shot he got just as the Pinata had smashed to pieces! So awesome.

Apart from that the night was pretty tame. By the end of it though people could barely move because of how much food there was. People had heaps to drink but I think it's virtually impossible to get drunk with the amount of food that was eaten. I forgot to mention to everyone that it is customary for my family to make food for 10x the actual number of people coming, and I probably should have mentioned that NOBODY can say no to my grandma when she's offering food. Seriously though... there were 4 cakes!

So all in all it was a great night with great memories that will last for ever :) I put up all the photos at my Flickr page including photos of the night and of the pressies, which were all really awesome (OMG I have Eva Unit 02 I can't get over it it's so awesome - thanks Matt!)

Turning 21 is funny - I don't FEEL any different, and nothing has actually changed, except for being able to legally drink in America (FINALLY just what I've always wanted). I guess I'm still stuck at thinking I'm 17, but that was a whole 4 years ago! Time didn't fly by or anything, in fact it's dragging it's ass with uni taking me so long, but I guess I always thought I'd feel mature and responsible at this age...

NOPE!

Flickering Screen

My MacBook goes in for repair tomorrow for the notorious flickering screen problem. I'll be without it for about 5 days grrrr so hopefully Winthrop Computers gets their act together and fixes it FAST!