links page

a few of you have said that my links page is not working. it has always worked for me, so i dont know what you are talking about!

i have played around with it a bit today, changed a bit of code here and there, so hopefuly it will work for all of you too

update

it takes 3 hours to put an ikea bed together
we finally got it all working at around midnight

a week in carly land

as you might have guessed by the lack on entries over the last few days, not much exciting stuff has happened this week so far. But i can report a few things

Monday - i went to my new taiko class. This class has been doing it for almost a year now so they are a bit better than the last class i was in. i had trouble keeping up at some places. They play the same song that we were doing in the Thursday night class but a lot faster, and they do it a bit differently (they use the huge drum)
they also played a new song i didn't know, but i got a copy of the music so i could play along. i had better practice a bit before next class

Tuesday - had lunch with megu

Wednesday - the weather was great so after uni i decided to go on a ride. i have been so lazy lately, the last time i went riding was good Friday when i went all the way to mordialloc and back (90kms)
i did my standard ride of going to jells park and pack with a few twists. This time i rod eto ferntree gully and then followed the ferny creek trail to carabian gardens and then along the road to jells. To get home i went through koomba park like i normally do. i was a bit disappointed that my detour through ferntree gully only added 5km more onto the total

Thursday - last night my window on my drivers side door decided to fall out again. Its done this before and i had gotten it fixed at the mechanic a few months ago. So i couldn't take it in till thus morning so all last night my window was open to the elements, letting all the neighborhood spiders find a home. Luckily the mechanic fixed it again for me for free.
tonight i went to ikea to finally pick up the rets of my bed - the slats. i am pretty annoyed that they didn't have them in last week when i bought the bed, but what can you do. At least i have them now.

so now it is time to put the bed together. Dad just got home from rotary so i have a helper. ikea furniture is easy to put together right?

more about my bed

so i went out this weekend to buy my bed, and that i did, but that doesn't mean i can sleep on it yet.

this is how the story goes.
i went to ikea on Saturday with mum and dad (and the trailer) to pick up my bed.
they had the one i wanted, but it was missing one integral part - the slats.
so when i ask when will the slats be coming in, they say they are not sure,
this really annoys me because it is not easy to get to ikea from my house. There used to be one in Nunawading but that closed a long time ago. Now the closest one is in Richmond. Almost a 1 hour drive.
so i try to look annoyed so they might be nice and deliver them when they come in, but they don't budge

so in in the meantime, we have discovered another bed there that is a really good deal. The one i wanted originally was only $99 (for a queen size mind you), but the one i found was $125 in the bargain corner, it just had a few small flaws which you couldn't see when put together. Normally this bed would be around $400 so it seemed a bargain.
have a look on the ikea website, its called the "Malm"


but the same problem as the last, the missing slats are the same for all the queen size beds, not just the one model.
so even by choosing a different bed, i still cant sleep on it

so now it is sitting i pieces in the workshop waiting patiently.

i think i will have to wait till next weekend now. Otherwise i will have to drive into uni one day and try my luck. They said that you cant order it specifically, and they cant put it away for you. you just have to go in and see if they have it.
great customer service! Not!

wet weekend

yet again another wet weekend. and then great weather on monday when i am stuck inside the office
no fair!!!

we should be happy for teh rain with all these water restrictions, but then you read in teh newspaper that even though over 50% of april's average rainfall fell in 2 days, it has had no effect on the water levels in the dams.
it must only rain in the city and not in the mountains.

taiko

to all you melbournians, you should try Japanese drumming (taiko). Its so much fun
i have been doing it for a term now, and i went back for my first lesson of the 2nd term last night

The classes for beginners are on Mondays, and Thursdays starting at 5.30pm for 1 hour
The location is 144-148 Hoddle Street Abbotsford,
St. Philips Anglican Church hall

The classes are run by a Japanese guy called Toshi, and sometimes by his wife Junko
He is well known as one of the best taiko guys in Melbourne

Its $88 for the term which includes 8 lessons

Email Toshi for more info
toshijun@netspace.net.au

quote of the day

I'm not weird, just special

..............thanks to Boofa

carly: tutor of Japanese

has a nice ring to it doesn't it?

Today i got my first student.
One of the HR lecturers at uni has a son who is studying Japanese. She went to the Japanese department and asked if there was anyone who could tutor her son for her and the Japanese lecturer came to me.

So i will start next week. Once a week for 1 hour or so. Its probably going to be for 2 kids, one of her sons friends needs tutoring too, so this is good for me.
bit of extra pocket money.

even better is that i don't have to go to them, they will come to do it at uni. They live too far away but their school is nearby.

one exam down, one to go

who would think to put an exam at 8.30am really!
it wasn't as bad as i was expecting, which was lucky

i hadn't done too much study for this exam, seeing it was only a multiple choice one i though i could fluke it to a certain extent. So last night instead of sitting in front of my computer revising i was watching rove on TV.
much more exciting

i was a bit worried this morning that i might not make it into uni on time. i had forgotten to put fuel in the car and i had been putting it off for days, so the needle was right on the empty line. But at least now i know that it will go a lot further on empty than it professes. i didn't leave enough time this morning to go to the petrol station so i was hoping that i wouldn't stop halfway to the station

it didn't, so i was lucky.

the exam itself was classic of swinburne exams. Full of ambiguities and grammar mistakes. Not that i can say much, my blog is riddled with speling errors. There were about 4 questions out of the 20 that i had to read over and over again till i could guess what they actually were trying to say. All in all i think i did pretty well. Its only those 4 that i am unsure on the answers.

cause of the exam there was no tut today so i had no more classes. Seriously sometimes i wonder if i am full time student or what. My business degree only has 11 contact hours. i am so glad i am not paying fees, otherwise i would wonder if it was worth it

how sms has ruined dating

the next installment in my endless complaining about dating

so now i find out that this guy who dumped me over sms has some kind of truth in his excuse, but it doesn't get him off the hook for being and arsehole. Maybe it makes him more of an arsehole!

when he said "recent breakup" he meant like 2 days before he met me!!!

if he was only interested in a "pash and dash" (as Kate would put it), why bother calling me up a couple of days later to set up another date in the first place

i will never understand men!
maybe i have just been off the dating scene for too long

i just cant get enough of....

queer eye for the straight guy

its just too funny. i should have been studying for my 2 exams this week, but no i had to watch this show. and i should be studying for the exams right now, but no i have to write my blog instead

i still serve the people!

one of teh reasons i started up my blog in japan was to give people info about life in japan.
even though i am back in melbourne now, i am still fullfilling that goal

today i got an email from a girl in japan. she was looking for rock climbing info. she had found a few links on my old site and needed more info. i can help people from all the way in australia too!

its a shame that i didnt discover any other real rock climbing fans when i was there last year.
there was that time when i put an ad in the metropolis magazine looking for climbers but all i got were scary people......

I really should get back into it this year. the gym in nunawading is pretty cool. and my climing shoes are just wasting away in my closet. if any of you are interested in coming to try it out one day give me a yell!

memory movies

just thought of another title to add to the list of movies about memory
"eternal sunshine on a spotless mind" with Jim Carey.

i have been told that this is actually quite good. By Charlie Kaufman, the same guy that did "being john malcovich" and "adaptation"

but seriously, what is with this theme recently??

mathematical rules of dating

i was supposed to go on a date this weekend.
but i was cancelled on by an sms along the following lines

".....With my recent breakup its all too soon to be jumping into another relationship, sorry i might cancel tomorrows date"

so this got me thinking (after my original feeling of being pissed off for being dumped), is there a rule to how long one must wait between breaking up with one person and dating another?
maybe you pick a number between 1-10, then times it by the length of time you went out with someone and then take the square root of the number you first though of.......

if anyone knows the answer please tell me. Its going to bug me for days

the other thing that bugs me these days is the use of sms to facilitate break ups.
is that lazy or what? Perhaps if the date was made by sms it could be permissible but i think either way it is still a cop out. Especially if it is not the first date you had with the guy.

bed bed bed

i have decided i need to get a bigger bed.
i have been sleeping in eth same single bed for as long as i can remember. but i am sure i have grown taller in that time span and its time to get a bed that is actually long enough for me.

originally i had the plan of getting one of those loft beds that you can use to but stuff like a desk under, cause me room is not that big. but it seems that queen size loft beds do not exist. a double just wont do it for me as they are the same length as single beds. apparently you can get a queen loft bed cause they are too wide and you would need more legs to support them.

and what is the point in buying a king single really? thats what my dad keeps trying to convine me to buy. i have to think about the future. when i eventually move out what could i do with another single bed really.

so i have done my research. beds are really expensive.
the best deal i can find so far is to buy a frame from ikea (they are haveing a sale and the frame that suits os only $99 for some reason). and then buy a matress from Myer. WIth mum's discount card i should be able to get a decent one for around $450 but that is still a fair bit of money.

i might be able to make a deal with my parents. they were considering getting another one of those sofa futons for our holiday house. but i think i have convinced them that they should take the one we have in the spare room up there, and use my bed in the spare room instead. why do they need a double bed in the spare room anyway, normally our guests come one at a time. and we have my brother's room spare now these days too.
if this all goes to plan i might be able to get some financial encouragement from them.......

if i get the queen size bed my room will be a bit squishy, but i am sure it will be all worth it.

melbourne weather

why does it always rain on the weekend in Melbourne?
Its like the rain gods whoever they may be dont want me to get outside and do some exercise. its not fun to ride in the rain. maybe these rain gods are conspiring with the gods of study. they are forcing me into sudying for the 2 exams i have next week.

there is only a certain amount of revising one can do in a day.

am I a dill or what?

I really should read my own diary sometimes.
all through the holidays (well all 3 days of them) I spent revising for a marketing law exam I believed I had today.

and I get to class today, had a look at my own handwriting in my uni diary and discovered that the exam is not till next week!
so what have I been doing all this time!!!

now I am going to have to revise all again because I will have surely forgotten it all again by next Thursday.
to top it all off I have (and it is confirmed by reading my diary and checking the subject website) that I have an international business law exam on Wednesday.

I chose to do 2 law subjects at once because I thought they might complement each other. They do to a certain extent but law subjects really take up a lot of time!

from now on I will be checking my diary a little more carefully. I guess the only consolation is that I didn't miss the exam all together

japanese presentations all finished

still on the same topic of my laptop, it would have been nice to be able to use it today at uni though.

we had our japanese presentation, and the extra bother of needing power cables made it all the more annoying.
but we succeeded. we were made to go first cause we were the ones with the laptop and projector. i guess it was good to get it over and done with now. the next step is to finish the acompanying essay which is due in a few weeks

our presention was about marketing a tour company specializing in tours of melbourne to the japanese. other groups made a magazine, another made an astralian zoo in japan and the last group marketing jewellery to the japanese. there are a few more groups to talk next week still.

i think we did well. we had a few hours before to go over it in a group. we had spent all thursday last week (when i was supposed to be at work) working on it. so at least we spent more time than kate's group last year allegedly spent (2 hours?)

mobile me

wow, what a feeling. i am sitting on my couch in the lounge room writing my blog
i can do this because of my new battery that arrived today.
also the help of a wireless card helps me along quite nicely

so i take back all my ill feelings towards the battery company who stuffed up my order yesterday.
this one works just fine.

i had been very worried that even when the real one turned up in teh mail it might still not work. my old battery used to cause my laptop to cough and splutter. if i put the battery in i couldnt even get windows started. it took me many days to actually even instal window until i realised that the battery was causing the problems.

so now my laptop is complete again. no more gapping holes in the bottom.

more about movies

have you ever wnated to be in a movie?
well now you have a chance to be an extra in the movie "the extra" by jimoein
Its being shot in melbourne at the moment.

My brother and i were going to go in tonight to be a part of it, but they cancelled tonights shoot cause they got it all done last night aparently.

But you can still be in it next week.
The will be shooting from 6pm - 3am a few days next week. i am deliberating whether it is too late when you have uni the next day.....

But for anyone who is interested, check out this website for details
www.jimeoin.com/ExtraRegister.html

movie theme repetition

has anyone noticed recently that there are so many movies relating to "memory" recently?
for example
1. Butterfly effect
2. Gothika
3. Paycheck

I have to say that i have seen the first two and i strongly recommend them
Butterfly effect is one of those movies that make you think - but not too much, you wont come out of teh cinema still trying to figure out what happened at the end. just the right amount of confusion

Also Gothika is very good. scary in parts, a little bit supernatural. but good

Still this doesnt explain the repetition of movie themes here

online shopping disasters

i finally caved and decided to buy a new battery for my laptop.
i figurered that the point of having a laptop is so you can be mobile. being restricted to places where you can reach a power point if kind of against that notion.

so i decided to order a new battery online.
I googled around a bit and found a supplier of the model i needed. And it was in melbourne so i was excited. the website professed free delivery so i thought "great, i dont even have to pick it up".

So i went ahead, gave my credit card details away, $185 later, and waited patiently by the mail box.

I was expective it to tak a few days at least, so when the postman woke me up this morning at 10am i was quite surprised. I think he might have been more surprosed cause i was still in my pjs and mistook him for my brother who was due home at around teh same time.

So after that bit of confussion, i got the box inside, fully of anticipation. I was thinking to myself, "wow, i can use it tomorrow when i take my laptop to uni for the jap presentation". I was truely excited.

When i opened the box to find a completely different model inside i was unhappy.

I called up the shop and at least they were helpful. They would send out a new one and pay for eth postage to return the incorrect one. But i dont get to use it now for a few more days.
You would probably think that i wasnt expecting it for a few days anyway so i shouldnt be upset, but thats what anticipation does to you.

the funny thing was that when i rang up the shop they said that quite a few other people had called that morning to say they had the wrong batteries delivered. Great business practices goingf on at this shop

I had kind of been hoping they said they they couldnt send a new one cause i have been studying marketing law recently and now i know my rights and i was in the mood for shouting legal jargon at them to make them do my bidding.

life tips #1

dont drink copiuos amounts of vodka cruisers
they give you a head ache.

do collect as many free flashing light thingy giveaways from nightclubs as you can
flashing bunny ears are good too.

dont go out on the roads ever again. my brother got his licence today

Welcome back to my blog

As of today, Koko ga hen is back in action.

All this because i didnt want to study for an exam i have tomorrow
I get sidetracked very easily as you may have noticed.

Eveytime i have exams i get into a creative mode. For example, during VCE final exam week we decided it would be a good idea to made a bean bag. Another time i got into making my own clothes. This time it is a website.

Another thing that happend during exam week is daytime television.
Normally i would go for the "Days of our lives" type show, but this week i have ben trying out the movies, expecially seeing right now is school holidays, kids movies have been on very often. and there have been some rippers on this week. "My step sister from planet weird" was a definate favourite.

But really i should be studying for "Marketing Law". very exciting topics of product liability, packaging, promotion, and intellectual property. Cant you see why i cant keep my head in the books?

Well this is my first post on the new and improved "koko ga hen". I hope you will keep coming back to see more
Make sure you leave a message in teh comments section