For me, there are two defining moments in pop culture about laundromats. The first is a scene in Mr. Bean where he somehow manages to get his washing mixed up with a woman’s, and has to wear a long brown dress instead of his traditional pants. Unsurprisingly, hilarity ensues.

The second comes from the movie Die Hard With a Vengance. John McClane (after surviving a subway crash) walks into a bank, and when the security staff baulk at his state of dress, he explains “It’s laundry day”. And that’s usually what happens to me (minus the subway crash, clearly). By the time it comes to laundry day I have usually worn all my somewhat-good looking clothes, and am down to the traditional trackpants and torn tee shirts.

Except the last time I went was somewhat different, I went to the laundromat because I didn’t have any clean trackpants. You see I’ve been in the middle of exams, and therefore walking around the house (and uni) in trackpants and torn tee shirts. So I actually had to head to the laundromat in nice, somewhat decent-looking clothes. This led me to wonder if laundromats have an implicit dress code. Did I stand out and look like a fool because I wasn’t wearing trackpants? Or did I just have too much time on my hands while waiting for the end of the spin cycle?

I’ve been cycling for a while now, almost a year I think, and I was quick to notice two things. It’s hard to cycle into a headwind, and it’s easier to cycle into the wind if you’re behind some other poor sod. This became particularly relevant on the way home yesterday whilst I was battling against a headwind the entire way home.

After a while I got fed up with getting nowhere, and so I started free-wheeling. As a large number of people take the same route home that I do, it was unsurprising that I was passed rather quickly by another cycle-commuter. As a side note, it is interesting to see the different people that cycle home. There are the hardcore biking nuts that have all the lycra, and the bright yellow vests and the super-expensive helmets, and the flashiest accessories. And then there are the people who have just hauled the bike out of the garage and are just hoping like hell it gets them home. I was passed by one of the former.

Anyway, it suddenly struck me that it would be nice to just cycle behind this guy and get a reprieve from the wind. A couple of other people caught on too, and before I knew it there was a trail of cyclists taking advantage of the ol’ laws of fluid dynamics.

The question I have, in terms of cycling ethics, is this: Is it okay to deliberately slow down so that the person behind you gets fed up and overtakes you, so that you can draft them?

Being a student, I’m often wandering around with my head in the clouds, trying to figure out the latest thermodynamics problem, or thinking about what’s for dinner. Today I found myself doing just that, whilst standing behind a group of people waiting to cross the road.

I was then suddenly disturbed from my reverie by the `tink tink’ (that’s what they sound like in Australia) of the crossing indicators. Almost instinctively I started walking across the road. But alas, the noise was coming from the adjacent intersection and not the one at which I was waiting. No one had pressed the button, so the light phase had gone straight through the section dedicated to pedestrians. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, because one can normally J-walk safely across anyway. Sadly however, with this intersection this was not the case, so I had to wait through another light phase.

Sure it wasn’t much skin off my nose. Who cares about waiting through another light phase? I just went back to thinking about dinner, after pressing the crossing button for the intersection. But it got me wondering how often this actually happens. And why? I have always found it somewhat rude when someone comes up and presses the button for a crossing when I am already standing next to it. It is like they are insinuating that I am incompetent and incapable of pressing a button when I want to cross. But in this case everyone assumed that the first person had pressed the button, but they had let the side down.

Maybe we’re all justified in making sure that button is pressed. I’m not really sure. Either way I should really go cook dinner. It’s been marinating in my head all day.

It was almost 6 weeks ago that I was in Airlie Beach for a scuba-diving holiday, but I was recently reminiscing and so thought I’d write something about it. Plus it comes up on my map as another pointer.

Backpacker towns are reasonably similar the world over, I imagine. All sorts of shops and such tailored to the niche needs of the backpacker. I had never really been in one prior to this trip, and it was an interesting change of scene. The bars were always open and full of backpackers, and the lagoon (Airlie’s substitute for a beach, because of the jellyfish in the water) always bustling.

However, after being there for a week, this novelty started to wear off. For the first few days we were diving all day every day (and we got steak for lunch). But after the diving was done, and we had time to wander around and see what there was to see, we realised how little there was to see. A lot of this could be because I am not really a great holidayer.

I am a typical ‘Type A‘ personality: I am not all that great at relaxing, and even get bored if left to my own devices with nothing to do. So being in a town that has become centred on pandering directly to the short-term backpacker population left me at somewhat of a loss after being there for more than five days.

This then led me to wonder how the residents of Airlie liked this high-turnover, high-throughput lifestyle. Sure they’re living in an amazing climate that is temperate all year ’round, but how do they like having their town trashed on a weekly basis by drunken backpackers? I suppose they just learn to take advantage of it and clip the ticket while the backpackers travel through.

Yesterday I submitted an assignment early. It wasn’t because I was going away on holiday, or that I had copied someone else’s and just wanted to be rid of it. But because I had finished it, it was right, and I was completely satisfied with it and had nothing more to add to it.

Admittedly it was a programming assignment, and these usually do have a finite end-point. Rather than an essay that can always be tweaked and re-worded. But the crux of the issue here is that I finished an assignment early. I have been at university for more than 5 years now, and have usually managed my time so that things get finished when they need to be finished, and not before.

I see this is somewhat realistic scheduling. They wouldn’t have given us so much time unless they expected us to use it all. And don’t we all have more important things to do anyway? I suppose that is somewhat simplistic, but nonetheless it was nice to have finished a project by myself, and a few days early for once. Maybe I should try this whole ‘being organised’ thing more often.

I was walking through uni with one of my friends recently, when I started singing. I’m not sure what I was singing, and I can guarantee it wasn’t in tune, but it was one of those “It’s a lovely day for singing” sort of days. So what was I to do?

Then, the next thing I know, my toneless serenade was rudely interrupted by my friend saying “Will, life is not a karaoke bar”.
“But why not?” I asked.
“It just isn’t Will, it just isn’t!” Came the reply.
“Well,” I said, “I bet I can find five reasons why life is a karaoke bar.”
And so here they are:

1. Of all the onlookers, at any one time, very few will actually approve of the way you’ve decided to ‘interpret’ the artists intentions.
2. Sometimes doing fun stuff comes at the expense of your dignity. A small price to pay.
3. It’s not really all that important that you stick to the original score, as long as you make it look good.
4. Giving drunk people a microphone is a bad idea. Usually.
5. Even when things are bad, and you feel like everything sucks. There is always a worse singer than you who is willing to grab the mic and give it a go.

Will: 1
Interrupting Friend: 0

I have been a student for a while now (yes, far too long really) and I’m more than accustomed to being out of pocket. I have heard many of my friends who have left university say that they are glad to be finally living above the poverty line.

Being a student means counting pennies, and making sure none get away with out a fair excuse. One’s priorities do change from day to day of course, and there are always minor infractions of the spending rules. But I do find it handy to at least keep track of the notes that I have withdrawn from an ATM.

But then, the other day I went to put on a pair of pants, and hidden in one of the pockets was a $20 note. Now I’ve heard stories about people finding money in their pants, and I had always thought those tales were for people who had money to flash about. You know, those people who carry their money in rolls of $100 bills, or who have money clips bursting with $50 notes and accompanied by a black AmEx. Yet here I was losing track of something as simple as a $20 note!

I must say though, it was a nice surprise. I bought myself lunch. Seeing as I’d already written the $20 off as spent, I figured there wasn’t any harm in spending it.

While heading into one of the buildings on campus yesterday, I overheard a poor fellow saying to one of the girls next to him:

Poor Fellow: No, what I meant was that I don’t see you as the dancing type.
Irate Female: So you don’t think that I can dance?
Poor Fellow: Well, no, I think you can, just that I didn’t think you would be that good at it, hence why you’re only doing a few lessons.
Irate Female: So you don’t think I should even go because I’m going to be so bad at it?!
(more…)

I’ve done my fair share of teaching at university over the years. Mainly first and second year programming, but a fair few people have been through the doors. Some even commenting on how cool my hair is (I’m still not sure whether they were being sarcastic or not. My hair is cool).

As a direct consequence I know a lot of young ‘uns  around the Computer Science Building. And therefore shouldn’t have been surprised when I walked into a tutorial for one of the subjects I’m studying this year and realised that I had at one time taught about half the class. I was surprised, however, when it turned out that one of my good friends from my teaching days was taking the class.

This was a good thing and a bad thing. Good because it meant I didn’t really have to introduce myself to the class because they already knew me, and also good because I knew it was going to be a good tutorial (this friend happens to be quite a good tutor). Bad because this tutor that I know so well decided to pick on me for the entire 50 minutes and make me answer all the questions. Sure, that’s not too bad really, but the real clincher was what to do about the students I had taught at one time or another.

Should I  ignore them and pretend I’ve never met them before (not entirely wrong, seeing as I’m so terrible with remembering names)?Or should I sit and chat to them about the good old days when they were my students, hoping they don’t bring up the poor quality of my teaching, or blame me for having to re-do the subject?

In the end I wasn’t given a choice, as the tutor loudly announced that I had taught most of the class, and that I would be first name out of the hat whenever people were picked to ask questions. Oh joy.

Being early March, university students throughout the southern hemisphere are returning to class. With the joys of uni come the joys of watching freshmen wander around campus with their heads buried in maps, trying to find their next class.

Although this year there was something a little different. We saw someone walking around in what was effectively a cocktail dress and heels. She still had the traditional diary and map out, trying to get to her next class, and I don’t have any problem with people look nice for the first day of uni. Even still, the heels were somewhat incongruous.

Uni tends to involve a lot of walking. Not only to classes, but to go and see friends for lunch, or just to the nearest public transport stop. And from what I’ve heard from women, heels are uncomfortable to wear at the best of times, let alone for an entire day whilst traipsing about uni. I imagine it’s a lesson one learns reasonably quickly, and painfully.

But why wear heels in the first place? Surely after so many years at school people would rather be in comfortable clothes rather than ridiculously impractical ones. I realise that appearance is overly important to a large proportion of the population, but surely one can find a middle road with a reasonable compromise between looking like a hobo and getting blisters the size of plates.