Hyper super no time at all to talk, but just had to say a mega huge thank you to everyone who went to my party the other day and spoke to me on the phone. I was a grumpy miserable homesick bugger for 2 days afterwards and got moderately cranky at people for singing happy birthday to me here, but it was worth it and I'm getting over it (mainly because I spoke to you guys...but the fact I am heading to the ski fields tomorrow helps!!). Just got some photos from mum (thanks soooooo much!!!!!!!!!) - was really weird to see photos of people talking to ME on the phone :) - and have to do my usual comments on them (btw, where's lachy's shiney knob head?) :

Mere : Niiiice skirt
Chaz : Keep the hair colour doll - looks great! You & Mere get the best smiles award.
Dave : Are you sporting a 'beckham'??? Shame files... :)
Dan : Hope you like my beer. Still getting over the fact a VB stubby costs $3+ here.
Nats : Hair looks dead sexy darls, don't cut it!
Fish : Hair is freaking long...either cut it or take up saxamaphone you Kenny G wannabe :) Congrats on the finishing thing
Rachie : Nice new accessory :) reow!
Lyds & Tony : miss you two...see you in the UK??
Fuzzy : Awesome Irish mate...how'd the auditions go?
Janie Girl : eat more :) still sexy though of course
Duncan : Hat? Indoors? what did you do to your hair to cover it? Purple again? No wait, it's the Baggy green cap. Cool!
Simon : Faster Mount Nebo time my ass. We'll switch bikes and see how you like it on a 17" steel frame. :) j/k. You look damn fit. Bastard.
Cadden : As per fish, except replace kenny G with Gene Wilder...heh heh
Sandy : Shit...has he gotten taller? Goobs and I rule the short world supreme
Karen : Bastard! You have more of a tan than me...Grrr. Send Sun SAP.
Harry & Mounty look so healthy!! I miss those two.

Anyone else, you weren't in the photos (aka slack family), so I can't comment. Send photos asap (risque' or otherwise! - tho none of that from the fam thanks) and I'll be sure to. OK, I have to dash...have to write a report, a 5 minute swedish speech, finish packing, finish designing my posters, food shop for the weekend, read a text book, eat, get dressed and find time to attend my own birthday celebrations at Kåren...and it's already 2pm. I love it baby!!!!

Dave, good luck for the awesome party Friday. 43 days and counting mate!!!

I've been doing some research and I stumbled upon the Earth 'n' Sea Pizza Place website, and I have two things to say.

1. Those guys smoke a LOT of hash.
2. All I want for my birthday/christmas is a still-hot Mullumbimbi Madness with Anchovies. Gawd I am hungry.

The Art Of Laughing At One's Self

Part One

Two engineering students were wheeling their bikes across the university grounds. "Great bike," says one to the other, "where did you get it? It must have cost a fortune."
"Well, I was walking across the grounds a few weeks ago, when a young woman rode up on this bike, threw it on the ground, and then took all of her clothes off, saying "Take what you want!"
"Good choice, said the other engineer, "the clothes probably wouldn't have fitted."


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Part Two

To the optimist - the glass is half full
To the pessimist - the glass if half empty
To the engineer - the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Part Three

A priest, a doctor and an engineer were playing golf, but were being held up by a particularly slow moving group who held them up for some twenty minutes. "What's with these guys? They can't even hit the ball!" exclaimed the engineer. "I've never seen such ineptitude," agreed the priest.

Just then the greenkeeper arrived, so the doctor asked what the problem was.
"they're firemen who were blinded when fighting the big fire in the Clubhouse
many years ago." it was explained. "Because of their sacrifice, they're allowed to play here free of charges whenever they want to."

The threesome was silent for some time.

"That's so sad," said the priest, "I'll have a special prayer service for these men in the next few weeks."
"good idea!", said the doctor, "My brother in law is an ophthalmologist, I'll call him and see what can be done to help them."

"Why can't they play at night?" asked the engineer.


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Part Four

The difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers?
Mechanical Engineers build weapons - whereas Civil Engineers build targets


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Part Five

The guy with the Science degree always asks - "Why does it work?"
The guy with the Accounting degree always asks - "What does it cost?"
The guy with the Engineering degree always asks - "How does it work?"
The guy with the Arts degree always asks - "Do you want fries with that?"

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Part Six

Normal people reason that, if it isn't broken, don't try to fix it.
Engineers argues that if it isn't broken, it doesn't have enough features yet.


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Part Seven

An architect, an artist and an engineer were discussing the Philosophical merits of wife vs. mistress.
The architect - "I like to build a solid foundation for my future with my wife."
The artist - "I like the passion, excitement and mystery my mistress gives."
The engineer - I like to have both because they each assume your with the other, so you get to spend more time in the workshop."

It's 8pm and I just got back from Göteborg. It was pretty cool, and I thought Meredith would be keen to know I went to a special exhibition of the works of Edward Munch (Norweigan artist who painted the 'Scream' amongst others) which was so good, as well as seeing a viking ship from the 10th Century, and a collection of swords from the 8th Century!!!!! That's bloody old! Museums here are so well funded...amazing. Anyway, I froze my tits off outside...rain is uncomfortable at 2 degrees celsius!!! OK, that's me cruising. Catch you later lovely people!

Go the Aussies in the 2nd Test!!!

Oh my giddy aunt...there are new t-shirt designs at www.somethingforkate.com...may the good lord restrain me. :)

Happy belated birthday to Sandy, and happy projected birthday to Duncan (cause I will be away for the weekend), or did I get these back to front again? I'll HB matt on Tues. You are old!

Cheers from the land of white, eternal darkness and strong cups of coffee that make me type at 6 bazillion words per minute. oh yeah, before I forget...

We@D2 it up QUT People! Long live Weekend @ Duncs!

I am so jealous. You metaphysicists out there are partying too hard...I demand you finish inventing a transporter unit.

Urgh...it's 5pm in the afternoon and it has been pitch black outside for 2 hours now! Weird...and kinda annoying! OK, so judging by the below post you can see I picked up some photos today, and I had some time so I thought I would quick scan some in for you all...so there is a crappy web page here with a handful of photos. That's just so you know I'm not in some secret government bunker somewhere pretending to be in Sweden whilst I build an army to take over Greater Brisbane to convert it to one big Mountain Biking City. They're pretty good photos actually...the photoshop techies they have on hand here in the bunker are damn good... :)

Yes, as you can tell I have opted for the 'photoshop' post, this time because I picked up my photos from the Stockholm trip. In case you didn't know, Howard here is my photo journal companion. You'll see his face in a lot of random photos. Not much to report except snow is on the way again...

Love Rowley

11:20pm EAST
14:20 Swedish Winter Time
Temperature : (-4) -> 3C (currently 4C and overcastish)

The weekend was thoroughly enjoyable with a pleasant concoction of a lot of guitars and a Salsa party. The touch football game on Saturday was hilarious and a unanimous success - despite the fact that the Aussies went down 42 to 14...oooops. But we were playing easy for the others I swear...

Anyway, I have a lot of reading for you because I have included below a copy of the article I have written for the Hi Tech magazine (the Engineering school's equivelant of Semper) which will be printed in the next issue. It's a ficticious article about a day in the life of an international student. I thought I had better throw in the 'ficticious' so isn't assumed that it is autobiographical, thus saving me from getting in trouble with parental units :) (no I am not womanising)

Without further adieu...

Viva La Internationale

There is nothing ‘lagem’ about an average day in the life of an international student.

It’s 7am in the ‘ghetto’ (our affectionate name for the Råslätt International Student Village), and for an unlucky few amongst us we are trying to compose ourselves to make our way to an early 8am lecture. Pushing aside last night’s acquistition (the remains of last night’s social gathering) and retrieving my notes from underneath a pile of photos, maps and souveniers I make my way to uni; bleary eyed, yet excited to see what a new day in another country will bring me. The first challenge of the day comes in the form of hoping the bus driver will accept my ‘en biljett tack’ bluff without the pursuit of further conversation because let’s face it, at klockan 7 in the morning after a weekend spent walking the streets of Stockholm I’m struggling enough with my own native tongue. No such luck today – from what I can work out he is saying something about the weather, but it seems I’ve managed to bluff my way through o.k. with a handful of ‘ja’s and a bout of vigorous nodding – the first challenge of the day passed without injury.
Next stop is surviving the two hours that are Swedish Language 1 without too much humiliation. For most of the international students, ‘Jag talar inte svenska’ is a part of every day life. Others prefer a confused look of despair and the hope for sympathetic redemption. But for the brave (sic. Sadistic) few amongst us ‘Jag talar svenska lite’ has taken on an almost religious form, where the pursuit of all things Swedish has led us to harass friends, staff and even complete strangers with our ’Swenglish’ – a confused concoction of well rehearsed Swedish phrases coupled with English words. Two hours later and already I am beginning to believe that I have this day ‘under kontroll’. I head outside, grab the two nearest newly acquired friends I can find and head off into town in search of a quick lunch.
Boosted by the confidence gained from my success earlier in the day I decide to try and order på Svenska. The counter-person at Jonas’ is more than kind when she interperets my Muppet’s Swedish Chef ramblings with little more than a smile. I know she’ll have a good laugh when she goes into the kitchen, but for the moment my pride is intact and now I have food, so I don’t really care anyway.
Upon returning to university, I head to the Bibliotek Café for a group meeting. I know the staff there are used to my Swenglish by now so I order ‘en kop kaffe och två kex’ with a smile on my face. The next challenge fo the day comes in the form of what I like to call ‘Intercultural Pictionary’. There are four people in my group, and none of us are from the same country. This is one of the more interesting facets of life as an international student, because our attempts to communicate with each other in the common language of English without using slang usually ends with us all rolling around laughing due to a mispronounciation or misinterpretation of one thing or another. But we get there in the end.
The group meeting over, I leave 10 minutes early to get to my lecture in the Ingenjör building. This is because you can guarentee it will take me this long to greet all the friends I meet in the short distance between the red and yellow buildings – another wonderful feature of the friendly international lifestyle.
By now the day is speeding along and it’s time to head home for dinner. Two hours later (well, I had to stop to play in the snow didn’t I – I’ve never seen snow before!) I enter my room exhausted from the day’s activities. The next task is to decide what is for dinner – Italien? Mexican? Chinese? Once that decision is made (Italian tonight) I put my shoes back on and head outside. After all, why cook or order the food from a restaurant when I can head over to my friend Gianluca’s in the next building and have it cooked by a ‘native expert’?!
Dinner aside (muto bene my friend), a session of studying and it’s 11pm already. I know I should be going to bed because I have another 8am start tomorrow, but I’ve just been SMSed that there is a ‘SMALL GATHERING @ JAMES. BRING FRIENDS’. It’s Monday and I’m tired, but I’m only in Sweden for a short while, and there’ll be plenty of time for catching up on sleep when I get back to Australia next July. So the cycle of life, studies, travels and parties continues once more. And besides, I promise I’ll be in bed at a reasonable hour this time…

Top 10 Ways To Improve Your Swedish
(gross stereotypes for the masses)

1. Get yourself a ‘Beckham’ haircut
2. Trim your wardrobe to include only the following colours : pink, white, cream, black and blue denim.
3. Outfit your room from IKEA
4. Make it to a pre-party for a few starter drinks, but never actually make it to the main event
5. Dance like a wilting flower in an afternoon breeze
6. Ignore someone as you push them aside on the dance floor, but apologise profusely when someone tries to punch you in the face
7. Talk endlessly about the healthy nature of the Swedish people whilst standing outside System Bolaget smoking a cigarette and munching through a bag of ‘Godis’
8. Defend the driving skills of Volvo drivers worldwide.
9. Start to state 5 good reasons why Eriksson kiccks ass, and be interrupted by the vibrations of the Nokia phone in your back pocket.
10. Death stare someone for blowing their nose with a 15m radius, then casually spit onto the ground between their shoes.

PS. There are some photos of people in general (including me) here. I would like to take this opportunity, however, to curse the genes from which I sallied forth. I am so not photogenic it is no longer funny, and this, I have since discovered, is made worse by my lazy cowboy eyelids, which FOREVER MAKE ME LOOK DRUNK, even though I am usually completely sober. In fact, in all the photos on the above website I am stone cold sober. There are only a handful of photos in existence [in Sweden] of me even slightly intoxicated, and I control over half of them. And none of them are online (yet...). So it's not fair. I mean, if this were the 70s, and I was looking to stand along side Jimmy Stewart or Johnny Wayne then fine, squinty-eyed me up scotty. But not when I am the designated driver trying to convince the local constabulary that the reason I can't walk a straight line is because I have weak ankles, and not because I have more alcohol flowing through me than Chris Fairley on opening night of his latest box ofice flop.

1:34am EAST
16:34 Swedish Winter Time
Temperature : 2 - 6 (currently 5C, and warm enough to wear shorts!!! Yeah!)

I'm sure this joke is old in Sweden, but like snow, it's new to me ;)

trevlig helg min många kompis!!!

9:13pm EAST
12:13 Swedish Winter Time
Temperature : (-2C) -> (-1C) (Currently snowing ;} and negative 4...yeehaa!!!)

Hello socialites and socialists!

Happy Birthday Zannie!!! (tried to call but you weren't home...)

It is I, your intrepid co-host to the lights of Europe, and your eternal provider of large quantities of procrastinating materials :) How are you all? First things first, I owe apologies to Janie for slackness in the email department...been away from the PC for a bit now, which leads me onto my reason, which is that I have been in Stockholm over the weekend.

I just tried to scan a map of stockholm to show you where I went on my travels, and how many kilometres I travelled in the wet and snow to see the city, but some arsehole has deleted photoshop on the computer, and I have no desire to destroy your download time with a 1mg scanned image posted on my blog. So instead,you get this cute kitten :

I was just thinking, when you have kids, people always come up with cute little answers for their questions...for example when asked 'why does it rain', people often say it was 'because God was crying tears of joy'. Personally, I think this can be turned around to teach lessons of personal hygene. I.e.

Q "What is snow?"
A "That's God shaking his head to rid it of lice and dandruff, because he didn't listen to Mary and have his bath"

Q "Why is the sky blue?"
A "Because it has been a bad boy, which meant God has smacked it around a little"

Q "Why did uncle henry have to die?"
A "Because that's what happens when you don't eat your greens"

Simple really. Respect through fear.

Anyway, so I went to Stockholm and saw lots of pretty things. The first being Stockholm itself. It really does live up to it's reputation of being one of the prettiest capital cities of the world. And I should know, because I'm a veritable authority on the subject, having visited 5 of them :)

But seriously, it is a very cool place...oozes culture from every pore. The weather was less than amicable, with constant rain on Saturday and snow on Sunday, but that wasn't about to stop me. We stayed in a hostel that is actually a boat - there are two of them in Stockholm and we were on the one that isn't famous the world over. From there I managed to do a great deal of walking around town seeing many things, including the place where they hold the Nobel Prize Dinner (Blue Room, Stockholm City Hall) and the Vasa Museum (there you go Bennie G...your favourite ship that sank only a few minutes after leaving the harbour). I even managed to find time to harrass and make crack a Royal Guard, who by the way are much slacker than their British counterparts. It was almost too easy to make him laugh. All I had to do was walk up to him, place a small stuffed dog (Howard) in guard dog position in front of him and he started to piss himself laughing. (Actually the whole crowd did...I did it during the changing of the guards ceremony...). But one begs to ask the question, if this is his response to a stuffed bear, what would happen in a real battle? What if the enemy caught wind of the whole idea and charged the royal place, teddy bears and fuzzy dice dangling from their army fatigues? It is definately a good thing that Sweden is neutral!

On Saturday night we celebrated Barbara's birthday at a rather nice restaurant in Gamla Stan, before hitting several pubs and clubs for a spot of good old fashioned funky monkey. We cut the proverbial rug until the wee hours of the morn before finding our way back to the hostel. Heaps of fun!!! Then on Sunday we did some more sight seeing, and got back to Jönköping at about 9pm. It was a nice night and there was a foot of snow on the ground, so Andrea (Czhec Rep. - yes I know I spelt it wrong) went for a hike, and then decided it was such a nice night that we would sleep outside in the snow. It is surprising how warm you can be sleeping outside without a tent in -10C weather! Snow is soft too...just like a futon. The Vodka and tea helped too :) I managed to sleep outside until 5am when my subconscious decided to make me roll over onto my water bottle, which promptly burst, soaking my and my sleeping bag. Hoorah for the human icicle!!! Luckily we were close to home and didn't follow our original plans of camping out in the hills! Then it would have been a nice case of hypothermia for Mr Marshall!

After all of that I am uber tired, and have spent the rest of the week being relatively quiet, although today I gave a lecture on Australia to a group of high school kids...was very well received, although we were 0 for 28 in the 'liking Vegemite' stakes. :) I wonder if Kallas Kaviar will go down as well when I bring some home to Aus... :)

Also, on Tuesday night I signed up to be a volunteer bartender at the student night club, which will take effect some time over the next few months. That will be cool...I get to be all Tom Cruise like, and sing great balls of fire whilst spinning bottles, pulling beers and teaching swedes how to make a REAL long island ice tea!!!!!!

Tonight I am having another quiet one...just jamming on the guitar with a few mates, and this weekend I am teaching the internationals how to play touch football, seeing as my Gilbert arrived!!! THANKS MUM!!! So I am really looking forward to that. I have my jersey all ready and raring to go! The next few weeks will be busy, with a trip to Goteborg (at the University's expense!!), a ski trip, my birthday party both at home and abroad, my birthday breakfast and my uni work. I am also doing some more promotional work for the school. My article is soon to be released on the website, but besides that and the lectures I am writing another article for the student magazine, doing some artwork and advertising materials for the Engineering department, and several more things on the horizon...so I am uber busy, even if it isn't with university work all that much! Couple that further with the games of Volleyball, soccer and aerobics, and I am most definately making the most of my time here!

OK, I have to go to a meeting now...missing you all lots despite the fun, and I hope to speak to you at my birthday party!!!

Matt got a digital camera for his birthday, and brought it to the Monday session...and as such we have some photos. The Mexican looking guy is the guru, Havier from Mexico. He plays classical guitar un-freaking-believably well, and I am his paduan learner. Siphiwe (SA) is learning, as is Matt, whom I forced to buy the guitar he is holding the same day the photo was taken. It was a sweet-as Morgan semi-accoustic. Noooice. Anyways, the scary thing to note is that all this makes me one of the more experienced guitarists in the room. And you just KNOW that spells a headache.

This one is just a joke...I saw the camera coming...promise


James joined us later, mugging Matt for his new guitar. Here we are mid-improvised 3 part classical. Boo yah!


...and here it is quite obvious that I didn't see the camera coming. Do I always stick my tongue out like that?????

Anyways, I'm off to Stockholm for the weekend. BTW, it's bloody freezing and windy. Hooray...??

Don't you hate it when you are planning on ditching a class for the day because you really just aren't in the mood, and you bump head long into the elcturer in the hall, and thanks to the Swedish system, you are actually friends with them, and as such you are now obligated morally to go...

And I was going to play pool too. CRAP! :)

9:17pm EAST
12:17 Swedish Winter Time
Weather : (-4) -> 4C (currently -1C and overcast)

Ludiocraty - the continual persuit of all things ridiculously insane.

Tangiential thought for the day - The entire concept of 'travel' is just tantric sex on a continental scale. We all hold some form of intimate relationship with our country of birth, be it the countryside, the people or even the beer. But sometimes, all this can get just a little bit dull, and so you decide to have an extended time appart to 'meditate' in another country. Within a very short period of time feelings of 'lust' and longing for your home begin to consume your daily life (homesickness) until it consumes your every thought. It is at this point that you return for some of 'the best damn country you've ever had in your life', whereupon within a few weeks the entire cycle starts over again.

Think about it people. You know I'm right.

And people think I'm not deep...

And the number one reason why I'd like to make killing Microsoft Employees a legal enterprise is...

NT just ate several hours worth of scanning and art work. I was going to log on and give you all a nice post about my thoroughly awesome weekend, but instead Windows Explorer decided to have kittens mid-way through moving a folder of scanned images and digital artwork of mine. Grrr. And NO I do NOT see the humour in the fact that the folder was called "valuable_images". Far from it in fact. Man, I am never going to get this webpage finished.

Die digital scum.

I want someone to break into my house please. The only condition is that you take only my guitar, so that I can claim insurance and go and buy myself a Chet Atkins special. You aren't to sell it though, because I love my guitar, and it has Mr Dempsey's signature on it, so I'll acquire it back after a previously determined acceptable waiting period. The reason for this is we went shopping today and bought Matt a new guitar. Yummy.