The entire stadium was glowing with little light orbs.  

Giant flags. Everything was giant... 

Fishies! I think they are supposed to be murray eels or something.  

Melbourne's iconic arts spire! There are cool inventions floating around it, and a giant koala.  

Look! it's the Queen, Johnny Howard and Steve Bracks.  

The melways, it's a key part of the aussie lifestyle.  

The night kicked off with one of Melbourne's famous trams flying into the stadium. We had seats just 31 rows from the front, so we had a perfect view! 

Before the start of the night's official proceedings, there was a short "backyard" cricket match. The people playing cricket were all young up and coming cricketers.  

Chris and I attended the opening ceremony for the 18th commonwealth games. this is outside the MCG, where it all took place.

Just another day at the office?

Could I consider uni as my office? Its an interesting concept. If I studied the amount of time Swinburne suggests, I would be spending 50 hours per week in the office. I wonder how much time most students actually spend on their studies?
This morning I tried to spend the day studying, with little to show for it. I had a class at 8.30am again, but that was followed by a 3 hour break. I jumped on the first train, and made my way over to John's work. He had borrowed a memory card which I needed back for my digital camera.
Tonight, Chris and I are going to see the opening of the Melbourne Commonwealth Games. I feel I need to take lots of photos, so I can share the experience with you all. I guess you could turn on channel 9 tonight as an alternative. It would be more up to date, but not nearly as personal.
I got back from John's in time to go to the library to study. However, I started chatting with some friends I met in first year, and didn't get as much work done as I had planned. In fact, the work done was little to none. I guess I was too excited about the games.

A much better day.

Yesterday was a disaster. Not only did the rain drench me from the wast down, I found myself wishing I had a larger umbrella. The rain made my shoes so wet that I could not concentrate because of my wet feet. My shoes still are not dry, today I have been forced to wear my old pair. They aren't comfortable to walk long distances in, because they feel like slippers compared to my current shoes. This caused me to lapse on my new years resolution (that and the fact that I was running late). Yes, I drove to the station. I know, shameful.
Yesterday started looking up once I arrived at Chris's place after uni. I read through some paper work for uni and had a nap before going to 18plus. I felt much better after having my nap and we ate ice cream at 18plus, so I was quite content.
Today started early again, with a class at 8.30am. I quite enjoy the schedule for Tuesdays, because it is split up nicely, and the lecturers are actually interesting. After my first two classes, I went to lunch with some of the friends I have made who also study pde. We ate pizza.
Lunch was followed by 2 more classes, them I proceeded home. I went straight to rovers and ate my packed lunch as dinner. Quite a good idea I thought.
Tomorrow is the opening of the commonwealth games. I am really excited. They are being held in Melbourne this time, so Chris and I are taking the time to get along and see some of the events.

Can you change a new years resolution?

I am starting to think that my new years resolution was a little foolish. Not because it wasn't a good idea, but because it is not always practical. I promised myself that I would not park my car at the train station, thinking that the walk to and from the train station each day would be good for me. I didn't take into account what I should do on rainy mornings.
This morning I was the victim of a mammoth downpour, with just a small umbrella to protect me. To make things worse, today is labour day, a 'public holiday', so I discovered that the trains are running on a saturday timetable when I arrived at the train station. I am pretty annoyed that our uni doesn't give us a day off today.
On a much happier note, there are only 2 more sleeps until the commonwealth games! They are being held in Melbourne this year, so I am going to see quite a few things while they are on. This includes the opening and closing.

Saturday night, Tim had a farewell celebration. He is leaving Kmart because he got another job.  

The beautiful bridesmaids.  

The happy couple. 

Saturday morning I went along to the wedding of Kat and Jason. Everything was beautiful and perfect.  

I went on these bouncy trampolene things, cause Chris suggested it. I got to bounce higher than Chris. Apparently thats because I had more elastics attached to me than chris had? Thats what he recons anyway! 

I got to mind the bags when everyone went on a ride. 

After the BBQ we went to a carnival in Mt Gate. I'm not exactly sure why the carnival was there though, because it's just the carpark of a shopping center. 

Barbara and Jess had to have a silly moment at the BBQ. 

The funeral.

Since I last wrote you, I have discovered that my Lenten study group is in fact on Tuesday nights, not Wednesdays. I don't think I will be able to attend.
Thursday was Wal's funeral. The day started early, I had to run down to the dry cleaners and collect my pants because they hadn't been collected since last time I wore them. I would have looked a bit funny wearing my suit jacket, but no pants. I arrived at Chris's place around 8am, which was when we had planned to leave, so that we could be at the church in time for a 10am start. I thought Chris was being sill, allowing 2 hours to get into Brunswick, but sure enough, it took us at least an hour and a half! We arrived early, and were able to assist in some last minute arrangements.
Family came from everywhere for the funeral. Some of them I had never met before, others I already knew. Wal's two brothers flew in from NSW for the day, which is quite an achievement. They aren't spring chickens themselves, but both seemed to be in good health.
The funeral service itself was beautiful. The church was filled with beautiful flowers, and singing, I really felt it was a celebration of Wal's life, not a funeral. After the funeral, there was a luncheon in the church hall. It was a good chance to catch up with family and friends.
The cremation was at 1pm, and after a short prayer for Wal, he was gone. I think his ashes are going in the church's memorial gardens, but I am not sure. The family gathered at Nanna's place for the wake.
Chris and I left early because I had to work. Even leaving at 3.30 I was pushing it to get to work on time. It was probably in part due to the fact that Chris wanted to stop off and have a quick look at a car he was interested in getting. It's a SAAB, very nice, and very well built. I don't think we will get it though.
Friday was a bit of a write off, I spent the day at work, scanning every DVD in the shop, looking for "clearance" DVDs. I wish they had RFID tags in them, it would make the process about 10 times faster. The one good point about work today is that I will have lots of money this week, however my uni work is slipping. It's a fine balance.
I have a BBQ to goto tonight. It's at the park just near my house. I hope to have a photo of that... It should break up all the TEXT... lol.. Diana should be happy with that.

Skins.

I have been looking at how I can skin my blog, what do you think? From what I have read, it.'s pretty basic to make a new skin using dreamweaver. For those who dont know about skins, its basically a new page layout, with new colours and alike. My main aim in creating a new skin is not so I can try it on my blog, but to try it on my rover crew's new blog.
After much consideration, Brendan and I have decided that the crew needs a more flexible solution that is easier to update. The theory is that if it is easy to update, it is more likely to get regular updates. A blog seemed to be the perfect solution. I will let you know how it all goes.
Today I was lazy. I skipped class in the morning, because I had already attended a tutorial for that class. I think i needed a sleep in, last night I was so grumpy. When I did get to uni I tried to do some questions, but I had no luck with them. I am worried about what the questions will be like by week 12!
Tonight I am starting a lenten bible study. It should be interesting.

Blogging on the run...

I think I have to admit to everyone that I have an addiction... Blogging. Why is it that I feel compelled to tell everyone about my boring life? Is my life blog-worthy? Why is it that as soon as I get on the train I get out my phone and start to type an entry? Its probably because the phone is a new toy.... But what he this persists? Is it a problem?
Anyway, on with the rest of this entry. Today we had some interesting classes, one being thermo fluid systems. I know this sounds horribly boring, but in actual fact our teacher is really trying to present the subject in an interesting way. He described the three states of matter today by likening one to each stage of human life. Child, adult, nursing home, and death.
My other class for the day was engineering management. We got to complete a personality indicator test, so eventually we will know what kind of personality I have.
After uni, I went to the hawthorn pub for dinner before going to rovers.
At rovers we discussed the upcoming events on the rover calendar. I think the next couple of months should be very different from our typical events. Perhaps it will be more balanced? When it gets all typed up, I hope to have it posted to the rover web site.

On the road again.

It seems like the world never sleeps. I know that sounds really stupid, but thats how I feel today. Last night I spent the evening working on homework before going to 18+. I got home in time to get to bed for about 11.30. 7 hours later I was rudely awoken by my alarm on my phone. It was time to start a new day. I had not really recovered from the day before just yet.
My day started with a brisk walk to the train station just peter dawn. At the station I bumped into Tim and Denise from church. They were off to uni and work. Once we got onto the train, we bumped into Chris K. So it turned out to be quite a sociable train ride. The time goes so much faster when there is some good conversation.

The jaws of life (or laws of life as I referred to it earlier) made quick work of this car. They were much quieter than I imagined.  

I know the photo os a bit blurred, but this was taken on Saturday night, at a work function to farewell Simon. He's worked for Kmart for almost forever! 

Friday night I went to watch Madagascar at the park near my place. It was to open the Knox Festival. 

Monday.

Monday, the first day of the working week. I still dont understand why the working week has to begin so early! When I awoke this morning the run still had not come up. I dont like walking to the train station and seeing all the cars with their headlights on.
The train ride to uni this morning was quite good. I bumped into Chris K (from church) and had a chat to him. As it turns out, he is starting his course today, at JMC it the city. He will be studying pound engineering or something like that. I think he might be a little nervous about it though.
I can still remember my first day of uni, i was worried about stupid things. Looking back, I dont know why I was worried, I managed to settle into my course very quickly. I am sure this will be the case for Chris K, provided his course is what he really wants to do.
There is nothing like a two hour lecture to kick off the day, as was the case this morning. Machine Design chose a horrible time slot for the lecture. Todays class was all about fits and tolerances, with a brief venture into the exciting world of ball bearings. It was so thrilling I could hardly stay awake! Maybe I should have gotten more sleep over the weekend?
When the lecture finally finished, I had an hour break, which I used to sort out that horrible 5th year subject I chose to do. As it turns out, I was able to swap it for a subject called human factors, which was recently revised from being a 5th year subject to 3rd year. So hopefully I have done the right thing. I end up having to go to uni on wednesday, but I guess thats life.... After my hour break, i had another trip into the exciting world of fits and tolerances. Thank god it was a tutorial, I would not have been able to face another lecture.
Now I am on the train on the way home. Over the weekend, I got my phone set up so I can send things to my Blog! How exciting... Now you will never hear the end of me. Lol. I cant completely throw out the computer though, because I only can post text from my phone at this stage. I am sure I will end up wearing out the key pad of my phone pre-maturely!
Keep smiling everyone! Andrew.

Sunday

Sunday was quite a busy day. I was to lead the worship service at church, which includes writing a short sermon. Then I visited the knox festival, being held in the parkland near my old venturer den.
The worship service at church seemed to go well, with lots of positive feedback. It was reassuring that people appreciated all the planning and effort that goes into preparing and running a worship service. There were also some good suggestions offered for ways to improve my skills in presenting. The first is that I should make sure that I am not too tall for the microphone. The second is that I should look up more while speaking.
The afternoon was spent at the knox festival. I managed to catch up with my old scout leaders and a couple people from church and work. Chris and I say a demonstration of the state emergency service using the laws of life. These are basically a giant pair of scissors connected to a power source. They used them to cut a man out of his car.
After the festival, I was hot and bothered. This was addressed with a short dip in Chris's pool before church. At evening church they had a guest speaker. He was the Chaplin for melbourne footy club.
All in all, it was quite a day.

The unexpected.

Sometimes the unexpected chain of events in life leads you places you never thought you would be. Saturday was one of those times. During the night on friday, chris's family was called into hospital. Wal Jenkinson, chris's grandpa, was not in good health. In the early hours of the morning, he passed on.
Even though Wal had not been well for all the time I had known him, it was still a shock to hear of his passing. His body seemed to have become a prison for his soul, and given that his body was breaking down, I guess it was time for his soul to move on.
Chris and I couldn't be there in his last moments, but we held him close in our hearts. By the time we did manage to get to the hospital, Wal's body was cold. His eyes were closed, like he was sleeping. The expression on his motionless face was one of relief.
After saying goodbye at the hospital, the family moved on to Wal's house to begin the ominous task of calling all his friends with the news. I helped as much as I could, making sure that everyone had some lunch, and something to drink.
In loving memory of Wallice Jenkinson. 1924-2006.

I spent all day working on uni work. This was the first chance to properly test out my new arrangement of two desks for actually doing work. I think it worked quite well, but determined that I need to have two chairs, one for each desk. I had a most productive day, and managed to get alot of work out of the way... Lets hope this attitude continues therough the rest of the year!  

Happy Shrove Tuesday to everyone for last Tuesday. I celebrated the event by going pancake tossing with friends from church. I also ate lots of pancakes. This wednesday, O-Week continued, with everyone out and about trying to get new members for the various clubs on campus. I think it's a harsh reality that many people arent interested in clubs. On the up side, I had a very productive day on Wednesday, completing some of the questions for engineering management. We also had a team meeting to discuss the Swinburn Venture Cup. If anyone has a novel problem they need solved, please contact me, because we are looking for ideas for our entry to the competition.  

Diana and Linda get back into the uni routine. 

Return to uni has been very interesting. one of my subjects seems pretty full on, but the others seem manageable. 

Over the weekend, Chris's family was minding Cory for a friend. Cory was full of energy, but Tim got tired out!