Homeward bound

Well on this my last day in Oz i must say its a lot different than i expected. there are so many polynesian faces here in the gold coast that walking around its pretty much just like home. Its hotter than home of course, and the bush isn't as pretty, the people are a bit more laid back, and the shops all close earlier than im used to, but other than that, its not a bad place to be.

Maths in the real world

It can be hard to follow a teacher when they're just talking about abstracts, things that don't make any sense in the real world. Like chemistry, before i took a paper on actual uses of chemistry in the real world, (CSI, Macgyver, poisons, ammunition, fingerprinting, airport baggage screening etc). My Uncle who was a brilliant and dedicated maths teacher most of his life, went to great efforts in an attempt to make the things he taught applicable to us in the real world, in an attempt to stretch out our minimalist attention span. One day after school while i was waiting for a ride home, he started talking about the Golden Mean. This was the first thing to catch my attention. It sounded like the stuff of legends, along the lines of the Greek story of the Golden fleece. The Golden mean is a ratio, the most aesthetically pleasing when used in art and pictures, and found in myriad places in nature. From honeybees, to fingers and toes, to music, to a rams horns, to food and so on and so forth. The Fibonacci sequence of numbers was based on it, taking 1, assuming 0 comes before it and counting every two digits upwards, 0,1,1,2,3,5,8 etc = 1.618.... The Golden ratio, the Golden mean, and many other names to attempt to express its beauty. Even the books of the bible follow the sequence - 66 books, 27 in the New Testament and 39 in the Old. To be continued...

Movie world

...was much better than i thought it would be. A day full of dragging kids around to things they didn't necessarily want to, but i did see it as being much better run than Rainbows end. They had live shows going all day, a warner brothers cartoon one, a stunt car driving one, a scooby doo one, and my favourite the Shrek 4D adventure. Very well put together indeed. I think my favourites were the Batman tower from the top of which you could see the whole park, and the Scooby doo haunted house roller coaster, especially the darkened room with the strobe lighting. Much different from a lot of the dumb attempted scary old looking ghouls and beasties that jump out at you and just look tired.

Australia Fair

I never thought australia was a particularly lovely place to look upon, indeed in my mind it was the epitome of a desert. I now stand corrected. We have been lucky enough to happen upon a rental property overlooking the Nerang river, with our own little beach, and wharf, with glorious views of the estuary i think it is, the trees on the other side of what I think is Surfers Paradise spit (have to get the map book out again i think) and a view of some tall city buildings off to the left. It does seem a worldly place to be, but not too bad when you're just visiting. Quite lovely in fact.

Culture shock

At home one of my favourite things to do is go late night shopping on a saturday. Its fun and i always run into people i know, usually several. Saturday night in australia, after feeding the kids we headed out about 6pm to go get some groceries. We headed off to the local woolworths, but lo and behold they were closed. We found a local guy just getting into his car, and he was helpful enough to point us to the local gas station, then he remembered "Food works" a sort of dairy/mini-mart which was open til 7pm. We got there at ten to 7 ran in and grabbed a few things that we needed and dashed out again. Bizarre this place. Theres also a profusion of traffic lights everywhere here. Every 200m you have to stop at a red light. The other weird thing is the millions of toll roads everywhere. We had to stop 3x on the motorway the other day between Brisbane and the Gold Coast to pay money for the roads. Roads cost a lot so i can see why they have to charge for it, it just takes some getting used to.

Overseas or not?

Sometimes you plan to do one thing and it doesn't turn out at all how you thought it would. I thought i was going to go overseas with my family in the upcoming few days, then i got sick, then my stepdad got really really sick in hospital, then my uncle's work decided they couldn't spare him for 2 weeks and he would have to postpone his holiday with his family. Since i was going to be staying at their prebooked accomodation i found myself suddenly scrambling around on the internet looking for backpackers in australia, and contemplating skipping brisbane altogether. One of my good friends lives in Sydney, i could just go there and visit her for a week. After all, the tickets are non refundable, i can't change my leave and i haven't had a proper holiday in years, I totally deserve this break. After 24hrs of running around trying to figure out what to do, i finally got a text from my mum, oh, so your aunty is going after all with the kids, your uncle has to be in china this weekend. Holiday back on, woohoo! Cross fingers nothing else happens between now and Saturday.

Celestine Prophecy

Eight documents written in the early centuries following the commencement of the Anno Domini era, hidden for years in a remote Peruvian village, recently rediscovered and in the process of translation. A peaceful priest trying to teach the insights gained in the documents, being hunted by certain political and religious factions. An american visitor to south america caught up in all the drama as it unfolds. This notable book/movie by James Redfield caught my attention because of its revelations of spiritual awakenings that were described in our time. Following intuition, insights, getting hunches, listening to that small voice within.

And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams (Acts 2:17) It talks about being able to see fields of energy invisible to the majority of people, the cause of conflicts and power struggles in this life, and sources of energy that never run dry. Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. (John 4:13-14) I just really like it :)