Well, fortunately my headache of Saturday had gone away by Sunday morning, but it was replaced by a bit of a nagging cough. I guess that’s a bit of an improvement… So I spent most of the day studying Fluid Dynamics, nothing too exciting. I did pass up an offer to go play footy in the Roberts Hall vs Farrer Hall game because of my cough and my being behind on hw though. Then in the evening it was time to go to MBT (Monash Bible Talks) at Rob & Simone’s, and after the “official” part of MBT ended at 9 (a bit later than usual), about a third of us stayed late to go deeper on a side topic that came up in the tape (or rather, wasn’t really mentioned in the tape). It was pretty cool, we wound up going all through 1 Timothy and some other passages, and wound up being there till after 11pm, hehe. It was actually quite interesting and very helpful.
Today I haven’t done a whole lot either. If anything my cough’s gotten a bit worse, sigh. I woke up so many times last night because of it too, KAAAHN! Other than that I went to my two classes and a two-hour prac, went grocery shopping, did a little hw, did laundry (still waiting for it to dry, over 4 hours later… man, the dryers at Monash suck!), and then went to Cafe Night over in the Dining Hall with Sam, Jen, Jake & Greg (all four are from U of California schools and here for a year, and I met the first three on the Grampians trip), where we just hung out for an hour over some good desserts (although I was cheap & healthy, and brought my own apple & orange, but next time I’m gettin a slice of mud cake and a big chocolate ice cream cone, that’s for sure!). The topic got onto movies, and they all gasped when they found out I hadn’t seen “Shawshank Redemption” yet, just like all my GAC & Cumberland friends always do. They said they were gonna remedy that situation sometime soon (but I’ve also heard that line before), so we’ll see, hehe. 🙂
In news, Australian Prime Minister John Howard this past weekend called the federal election, and set a date of 9th October. Now for a brief lesson on Australian government. The Australian constitution mandates that there be federal elections for the office of Prime Minister (and I believe the House of Representatives & Senate as well, but don’t quote me on that), at least every three years, and it is the sole responsibility of the incumbent Prime Minister to set the date for the election, which must be on a Saturday. (By the way, voting is mandatory down here.) When he announces the date (which he can do at any point during his term), he must set it a minimum of four weeks away. But the six weeks of the “official” campaign season between now and the election is the longest in the past several elections. By setting the election for 9th Oct, Howard has set himself up to be the first of the “three amigos” of Bush, Blair & Howard to face their electorate since the Iraq war. Also, Howard (Liberal Party) is running for his fourth consecutive term, which would make him the second-longest-tenured PM in Aussie history, and his opponent is Mark Latham of the Labour Party. All indications at this point show that it’s pretty much a dead heat, but according to The Australian, on issues of the US alliance (which actually is a big deal down here, it’s amazing how much the American election is shaping the Aussie election), security and the war on terror, Howard owns Latham. And in a mostly unrelated note, John Kerry’s daughters got soundly booed when they appeared at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday night, and were booed even louder when they tried to tell the audience members that they should vote for their father. Hmm, is this an indication of potential trouble in one of the demographics that the Democrats had been banking on?
Well, once I deem my stuff to be “dry enough” I’m gonna definitely hit the sack, g’night. Hopefully tonight will be a more restful night.