Winza's Blog - Melburnian Youngster

Sunday, 29th February, 2004
Ashburton Festival

Every year on the last Sunday of February, an annual festival is held at High Street, Ashburton. I've been to every annual festival here since 2002. I was very disappointed with this year's festival, mainly due to the lack of atmosphere. More organisations participated in last year's festival compared to this year. The most irritating part of the festival was the "Ashburton Idol", (which was clearly a clone of American Idol and the Australian Idol) and the stage was filled with young teens singing Britney Spear's, "Opps I did it again".
This festival was the worst one that I have ever been to in Melbourne.

Thursday, 26th February, 2004 17:29
Little Microbes help nature...

Little Microbes in fuel cells can help nature by generating electricity as they consume organic matter, according to Liu and Logan. This is based on redox reactions, except that electrons are produced by the consumption (and hence the oxidation) of organic matter.. With the ability of microbes to generate electricity while consuming organic matter, this will probably save energy both in sewage treatment and daily electricity use. And despite only little amounts of energy are being produced by these microbial fuel cells, developments in the coming years will hopefully bring these MFCs into domestic use.
(Damn it! I wish I chose to do environmental engineering at the start of 2003 instead of Environmental Science. Sounds so much more interesting)

Thursday, 26th February, 2004

I did my driving test on Tuesday and luckily I passed the road test (the easiest bit). Now I have to do the computer part which is the Hazard Perception test. I did it on Tuesday, failed twice, spent the last two days in tears and got depressed (I kept calling myself dumb/stupid for the last two days).
I canceled the test for today (due to unexpected occurrences) and I actually felt happy now that I won't have to do it for the next few months as I have decided that I will keep my mind off it for the next several months and study hard.

Friday, 20th February, 2004
School violence in Hong Kong - who is to blame?

After hearing what is going on in Hong Kong lately, I had serious thoughts and opinions about school violence in Hong Kong and who is to blame. School violence doesn't only happen in Hong Kong - it happens in Melbourne as well. Even in year 12, I saw people fighting at school - well at least it was in the school and not outside the school boundaries. In Hong Kong, school violence has been getting more serious as a video footage of the incident had been put up on the Internet and even to the point where it is been publicized in the media. So who is to blame?
Most people are blaming it on triad gangs, but I would stop and think about it once more. It could be the school's fault - some schools just sweep it under the carpet as nothing happened just to protect the school's reputation.
I think to prevent such incidences, school should get their priorities right and to protect student's well being before protecting their school's reputation.

Wednesday, 18th February, 2004
Curry with Ketchup?

My mum loves cooking and she often likes to try new stuff in the kitchen. As her only guinea pig, I must say she has so far been successful with her cooking. Tonight, my mum has decided to cook what she calls "Indonesian Style Curry", which I don't think she knows precisely what ingredients to put in. Having said that she only tried the curry last night and believes that there is tomato sauce in it. Fortunately, it turned out to be fine - only a bit of tomato flavour on top of the original Chinese style curry. Tonight, I can enjoy my chicken curry rather than throwing it away or feeding it to the cat

Monday, 15th February, 2004
Water Levels - Revisited

Every now and then I go and check the water storage levels for Melbourne. The water storage levels went up during spring last year (due to the high rainfall season) and peaked at around 57% in mid November. Now, the water storage levels are 53.9% full, which I am not surprised because of the hot weather and low rainfalls in the catchment areas. (Saturday was the latest heatwave that I had experienced). Unfortunately the last few "freak" storms landed in the wrong place (and at the wrong time - as summer in Melbourne is rather dry), otherwise Melbourne's water storage levels would still be at 55%..

Saturday, 14 February, 2004
Photo of the Week

Pedestrian footbridge in Birrarung Marr, Melbourne - the silent "gateway" to the city

Saturday, 14th February, 2004
The third trip to the city in 4 months

I went to the city yesterday to take some more shots of the cityscape and the botanical gardens and to have a look at the sustainable living festival in federation square. The sustainable living festival wasn't what I'd expected but there was still lots to see. A lot of it was to do with sustainable products such as the rainwater tank and gardening, which I am not interested in. However, I did grab a few brochures about conservation and the environment. One thing that I liked there was that glass plates and mugs were used instead of plastic or paper ones at the food stalls and when people finished eating, they just put the plates into washing tubs - very environmental friendly.
I was getting bored at the festival, so I went up to Birrarung Marr (the new riverside park north of the yarra) and took some "cityscape" photos there. There was nothing at the park besides grassy land, the federation bells and a footbridge, so it was just another open place in the city. The view from the upper terrace was amazing - just about all the landmarks could be seen there.
The third place I went to was the botanical gardens. There were lots of open spaces (lawns) there (and I also took lots of pictures there) and there were swans there as well - they don't walk away from people. Also the botanical gardens had lots of trees, flowers, plants and water which I liked, I was very exhausted at the end of my 2 hour walk around the gardens (as some areas were quite steep). I recommend the botanical gardens for anyone who likes trees and plants and for walkers.

Monday, 9th February, 2004
The Reality TV Craze

Reality TV shows are getting fairly popular on Commercial TV stations and everybody here seems to like it a lot. The big brother shows are the more popular ones in the world - several people go and live together for a month while being monitored and showed on the TV show. I don't like the show - I think its very degrading watching people living in a house - there is no privacy. Not all reality TV shows are bad here in Australia. There are quite a few quality reality TV shows here in Australia such as ground force and the American Idol - its less degrading and they are more entertaining than pure drama.

Sunday, 8th February, 2004

Unfortunately, I will miss the St Kilda festival today as I felt sick since last night. I feel very miserable at home and I still wish I could join in the crowd @ st kilda.

Saturday, 7th February, 2004 10:00
Questioning the safety of public transport

I was just mentioning yesterday that I hope there won't be a third public transport accident. Now there is the subway bombing in Moscow that killed at least 40 passengers and another accident in Melbourne, were 6 people were injured after a tram derailed in Port Melbourne on Friday morning.
I am starting to wonder if it is still safe to go on public transport. If authorities want to attract more commuters to go on public transport, it needs to step up its security measures.

Friday, 6th February, 2004 14:35
Go Melbourne!

Once again, Melbourne is ranked as the most livable city in the world, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. I always liked Melbourne and I would always call it home - its so comfortable to live in: fresh air, quiet and peaceful and it very multicultural. Its also very "green" as well - lots of trees beside roads and lots of parks and gardens. But Melbourne isn't "the" perfect city yet as it needs to make a big improvement on its public transport system - train delays and some bus services don't even operate on Sundays.
I just realised that most Sydneysiders are pretty arrogant about their own city.

Friday, 6th February, 2004 00:26
Railway Chaos

A gas leak in Sydney's rail network, cityrail sparked chaos during peak hours yesterday. Train stations were closed and commuters were evacuated after gas leaks had been detected at Town Hall station at approx 1:45 pm and most services out of the city resumed by the early evening.
Its only February and the world is already faced with two major transport accidents - the "fire" train in Hong Kong and the gas leakage in Sydney. I hope there won't be a third one.

Wednesday, 4th February, 2004 21:29
To tell or not to tell, that is the question

I got some bad news this evening, when my driving instructor called and told me that my driving test will be on 24/2 (two and a half weeks from now). I knew it was going to be before March, but I never knew it was going to be so that early. As I have been very nervous at driving, I don't know if I will pass the test. Although my parents will try to relieve my stress and make me feel better, it always turn out that the result will be the opposite: I get even more stressed. And since my parents are pressuring me to take the test before I go back to uni, they will probably make me more nervous and more scared at driving when my driving test approaches. But if I don't tell them, then how can I get money for the registration fee? So I don't think I will tell them until the very last minute because, I will need to get money from them for my registration fee if I pass the test (but I doubt I will).

Tuesday, 3rd February, 2004 19:48
Bird Flu - A health crisis in Asia?

Since January, at least 10 nations in Asia have been infected with the bird flu. Its bad enough that millions of chickens are already culled in these countries and it is also feared that the virus will undergo a mutation, which humans will be less immune to. I have seen chickens flying around the farm and people, killing chickens by banging their bodies against the ground without wearing any protective clothes on TVBS. If people don't get their act together and treat poultry in s more hygiene way, then the bird flu will potentially be an Asian health crisis of the 21st century.

The anti-smoking issue: Link

I found another article on Spikehk.com about anti-smoking, called "No more bullshit. Ban Smoking". Its an article about why smoking should be banned.