First of all...

Happy birthday to Ashley, Gideon, and Joyce!

(Before anyone says anything about favouritism, this is in alphabetical order.)

Come to think of it, there are a lot of birthdays in April. The thing is that out of the seven that I can think of, only two are local. Now that's another sign I should find more friends.

No, I HAVE local friends, I just talk to my overseas friends more often.

Well, Easter doesn't mean much to me. It's just a day where all the shops are closed, but happy Easter to anyone who celebrates it anyway.

Well, I almost fell asleep during today's maths lecture. The keyword is "almost" - I didn't actually fall asleep, but I was so tired that I couldn't pay attention anyway.

During the ELEC1601 tutorial I was so tired that I thought about walking out, especially since I should just leave while I still have enough energy to ride my bike back to the station to catch a train, but I just sat through it anyway.

I'm glad that it's the holidays now. I'll finally have time for all the things that I planned. (As usual, I always have heaps of plans that I never actually finish. xD)

How appropriate that today's topic for the ENGG1804 lecture was telecommunications. It was mentioned that in Sydney we don't have optic fibres to households yet, so there's a limit on the bandwidth available to home Internet users.

Well, the whole "high-speed" Internet thing doesn't work. It's just as slow as the old 512k plan, which has actually been replaced by a 1.5M plan for a while, but they continue to keep it slow for people who don't check. Well, I'm just changing it back to the 1.5M plan next month.

I've just realised that I forgot to hand in my linguistics assignment. I was going to do that during my lunch break, but the ENGG1804 tutorial went over time so I totally forgot. How embarrassing. I hope I don't get penalised for handing it in late.

First of all...
Happy anniversary to Leighann and Thaddeus! (Leighann, you're still with Thaddeus, right? xD It'd be funny if the answer turns out to be no.)
Happy birthday to Marty!

I had a look at my posts from this time last year to make sure that I have the dates right, and I realised that I didn't really post that much this time last year. Well, 8 posts in March last year compared to 14 this year, but this year's posts are longer. In March last year I was probably just getting to know the person that ended up being mentioned too often for the rest of the year, and in March this year I had to settle down to a new place once again. I'm probably writing down a lot more now.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to tomorrow because I'm getting a high-speed Internet connection. It turns out that they do offer those here in Sydney. I just hope it'll really be as fast as it claims to be.

Given all the different ways that people's names can be pronounced, even the linguistics tutor didn't know how to pronounce some of them. It would be so funny if everyone had to transcribe their name in IPA on the assignment in addition to writing their name. Then again, it'd be cruel. If you get it wrong, you'll get addressed by the wrong pronunciation, except you can't even blame the tutor for getting it wrong because that's what you wrote. xD

How do I pronounce my name? I think I would say [ˈkhεɹi].

Come to think of it, I ought to ask the linguistics tutor whether he thinks I have a Cantonese accent or not. It'd be awkward if he thinks I have a "Vietnamese" accent too. Then again, the other girl probably didn't notice my Cantonese accent because she's Chinese, so it would sound more or less neutral to her. Then again, my Vietnamese friend said that my Cantonese accent isn't that obvious. May be I now have a more mixed accent as I slowly pick up accents from various people. May be I should try and pick up an accent that I like, but what would that be? xD

All this about accents. xD There you go, it's my latest obsession!

According to someone I met today, I have a Vietnamese accent.

That can't be right! I can't possibly have a Vietnamese accent! May be my Cantonese accent isn't as exaggerated now, but surely I don't have a Vietnamese accent? I don't like my Cantonese accent, but having a Vietnamese accent would be worse. Not that I have anything against it, but that just wouldn't be right! I'm from Hong Kong, and only last year I had someone tell me how heavy my Cantonese accent is.

Is it? I probably say [θ] or [ð] as [f] or [d], but that's what it can sound like to me. Even in a song American singer I hear "though" pronounced as [doʊ] (as in "though he's way too young to drive"). Then again, I don't think I have a problem with liquids, and I definitely don't exaggerate final consonants.

I'm so glad I chose to study linguistics. I've wanted to learn IPA for a few years now, and I never quite got it. At the time, I tried to read all those articles on Wikipedia and I only got confused.

May be it's actually part of the reason why my accent changed? It probably made me pay more attention to how I pronounce words, especially since I had to transcribe words in IPA for an assignment.

Either way, I don't want a Vietnamese accent! I do sit next to a Vietnamese person in all my maths lectures. I can't exactly avoid him either, because I always sit at the front. Hmm... I guess I'll have to try and balance it out.

Today I've also told a group of friends about SSP. They like it so much that they tried to say it even when the group has only been silent for like, two seconds. It's so funny! Look, Xumbra! I'm telling my friends about #ennui!

I bet that many people will be glad to have that extra hour of sleep, but I don't want daylight saving to end!

I like being 19 hours ahead of (most of) my friends on #ennui. (Look, Xumbra! I'm advertising for your channel!) Well, it's already only 18 now that they've started daylight saving, but 17 just isn't enough.

It's a sign I need more friends.

No, I actually have a lot of friends here. It's just not the same.

Of course, this is still a lot better than the year when I first came here. At that time I used to go to every site that I frequent to change the time setting to match my time zone. I don't bother about that now. This almost makes it sound as if I've been here for a really long time. It's only just over 2 years. Then again, I post about daylight saving when it starts too, so this should be my 5th post about changing the clock. If I include the posts about whether daylight saving should have an S or not, there are probably more.

Here I go again. I mentioned that incident. It was almost a year ago. (Well, two months short of that.) Yes, even now I do think about those funny moments now and then. May be I really shouldn't. It's not like I'm bored or anything either. I have a lot of work, I have a lot of friends, and I'm having fun; so why do I still think about you-know-who? (If you're reading this, you should know who I'm talking about.) May be what Kelly said when we were on the train was right. Now, if anyone other than Kelly (and may be Annie) actually gets what I'm referring to here, I'd be surprised. Whether you get this or not, don't ask.

I was so shocked when I couldn't find my bright lime green jacket. I went back to the lab that I was in yesterday, and no one was there. I tried looking in through the windows, but I couldn't see anything. Just when I was going to leave, the technician who worked in that lab walked past. I asked him if there's a lost and found anywhere nearby, and surprisingly he actually asked me what I lost, so I told him and he said it was in the lab! I'm so lucky this time. That jacket is my favourite. It was cheap, but I don't know where I can buy another one like this if I lost it. This kind of material just isn't common.

Today was actually quite a good day. Hyperbolic functions were mentioned in maths today, and everyone laughed at the pronunciations of "sinh" and "cosh". I already knew these, and I even had a smiley face for sinh, so I stayed at the end to show the lecturer. There I go again, I just can't miss a chance to show off. I also showed it to the line of classmates who were waiting to asking questions, and one girl said that the smileys were cute. The lecturer didn't have any comments though. May be they're just too cute for him.

The linguistics tutorial was also fun. We had to take turns writing the pronunciations of words on the board.

Most important of all, I'm glad it's Friday.

Well, I had to take a computer apart today, and it wouldn't work after I put it back together.

It would be so appropriate if I was wearing this t-shirt. I should've expected it. As if I can take something apart and have it working normally after I put it back together.

Then again, I'm glad that I wasn't, because my friend pointed out that I'm always wearing science t-shirts. I wore a tie-dyed singlet instead, so now I have someone suggesting that I can be making clothes for that runway show (whatever it's called... I don't even watch it). May be I should fish for a suggestion to go on some other show. Hey, that's a great idea for a new collection: I can collect suggestions to go on TV shows (or things that I should do in general). Come to think of it, I do have a tendency to get suggestions to do just about everything. At least my "official" studying is more interesting now. I can't even put a computer back together. That's something to work on.

The person who said that I should be making clothes for the runway show also said "go go gadget" to me after seeing my lasertemp. Right, he wasn't even the first one to mention Inspector Gadget to me. I remember someone else who said I reminded her of Inspector Gadget. Yay for these random references!

I can get away with riding on the footpath in the city because there are many cars, but the footpaths inside the university campus are even more crowded than those outside and there aren't as many cars, so I ride on the road like I should. However, this means I get chased all the way from one place to another. Riding on the road is a lot faster than riding through the crowded footpath, but I have to pedal a lot harder so as not to hold up the traffic so badly. (Then again, I probably slowed down the traffic significantly anyway, although there's another lane for all the cars to overtake.) It reminds me of someone's bike that I saw parked outside the Woolleys building the other day - it has "Cars hold up traffic" on it. That's a very reassuring slogan to see.

It's the normal busy Monday for me, but this week my timetable is slightly different again because I changed my differential calculus tutorial to the first one in the morning.

I wish I didn't. The tutor is the lecturer for linear algebra - the one with the accent that I can't understand. What a weird problem to have in maths. If it's a foreign language class then may be it'd even be normal. In a way, it's even more ironic considering that I'm studying linguistics too.

Come to think of it, I really tend to notice the lecturers' accents. I don't notice my classmates' accents as much even if I talk to them a lot. Let's see... On Mondays, the day starts with a linear algebra lecture and then a differential calculus tutorial by the same lecturer / tutor with the almost incomprehensible accent. After that, I have a  computer engineering lecture. Luckily, this lecturer is much easier to understand. He has what I consider a "neutral" accent (the "no accent" kind of accent) which doesn't really make any sense - what would that be? Theoretically, "no accent" would be the accent that I speak with, but that can't be it, because I'm well aware of my own Cantonese accent (which I don't like) and it doesn't sound neutral to me at all. For the introduction to engineering disciplines lecture, one of the lecturers originally came from Canada, and he has an obvious accent, but it's actually quite cool. The other one has a neutral accent. As for the linguistics lecture that I couldn't attend for Monday, that lecturer's accent makes him sound so harsh! I think he's from the United States, but none of my friends over there have a similar accent.

Accent or not, the information covered in the engineering disciplines lecture actually overlaps with that from the computer engineering course. That's actually fine with me for once. (I normally hate repetitive classes. This is really a sign that I'm too tired.) What's more, another part of it reminds me of  year 10/11 ICT which I hated at the time. Control systems, anyone? The Arctic climate built in an enclosure the Amazon, complete with thermostats to keep the polar bears alive. (If any of my friends from Hong Kong are reading this, you'll know what I'm on about.) Luckily, the unit that I'm studying now is much more interesting.

It's getting late... I hope the EasyWay near the train station will be open when I get there tomorrow. (There's a chance. It's only on Mondays when they take their time to get ready.)