#297- Economics behind Olympic success

You know I was googling the medal tally (my daily ritual) and one of the news articles was about the BRIC'S and also about the relationship between Australia's medal tally and our appreciating dollar. SO the curious george in me decided to read them because they might beef up my essays (yeah right!)

Basically the AUD article said that whenever Australia had a low exchange rate then we would do reasonably well, i.e. in 2000 and 2004. Not sure if you know this but recenting Australia has been experiencing an appreciating dollar, rising by 16.5 per cent against the British pound over the last two years and 42 per cent against the euro since the Athens Olympics in 2004. Also an appreciating dollar = cheaper shopping = Increased spending and more time away from training and that was the logic used behind this article.

They also commented about the reducing spending by the Australian Govt on sport, why? It's because of the govt's contractionary stance as the govt aims to achieve a buget surplus over the course of the business cycle bad thing is that the figures don't support this......

Moving onto the next article, where they tried to show the relationship between emerging countries i.e. BRICs and their growth and the correlation to medal tallies. Click here if you want to read it. Also if anyone can be bothered but is the Soviet Union counted as part of BRICs because I always thought that it just stood for Brazil, Russia, India and China.

#296 - D is for dreamer

- Had a long 14 hour (and much needed) sleep ever yesterday :D
- I think G's school spirit is really good compared to others. and all the fun things they hold definitely makes the school a better place (:
- Yeah, still can't tell who's good and who's not - ie. the true faces of people.  There's so many of this type: nice, chirpy, sweet on the outside. Then mean constitutes the entire inside. I shall probably remain a naïve "fool" forevermore in judging people
- I've figured out what I'd like to do after all the exams and I don't mean courses / jobs. AHHH I can barely contain my excitement. Places to go, people to meet, adventures await...and that includes finally learning how to drive. haha
- The mere act of trying. What can I say? I wish I did this more.
- Another thing. Australia's media coverage of international events is a national disgrace. Of course, patriotism is a good value, but when they fully parade Australia onto the screen and and give it a substantial amount of screen time, and give other countries / other international representatives like three seconds of screen time, one can only assume that Australia is .... fucking racist. A key example, tennis. Channel 7 & 9 ensures that players from Australia are ALWAYS in the limelight, making dramatic adverts for their matches and also barely ever air other tournaments beside the Aust. Open. Hence I'm mentally preparing myself for the racist Olympic coverage. I don't think Australian media will ever learn. On another note, I feel so embarrassed and disappointed that Channel 10 is airing 'The Shire' - truly it makes us look like shit to the rest of the world. I also can't tell whether I should be happy or annoyed that there are only white people on the show (yeah, so what the fuck happened to our so-called "multiculturalism" if the people on national TV are 99% white?!) but what can I say, this is the best Australia has got >_>
- Now heads down.

*squeals and dies*

Dilemmas. The issue I always struggle with.
In only a little we'll have arrived at a little signpost and we'll be asking ourselves the question:
Where do we go? Stay as we are with these entrenched uncertain emotions? Or not? Further go ahead?

#295- UMAT

It's over! Although having to wait 1hr+ was unnecessary and apparently someone came 1hr late for Section 1 so they had 10min to complete but seriously who comes 2hrs late to an exam.

Oh my Australian Open membership cards came in the mail today as well as my ASOS shoes. They're killer and I mean quite literally seeing as they're 14cm and it's a bit hard to walk in them so hopefully I dont kill anyone come formal (:

photos of shoes will be in other blog and I need to chase up AusOpen for my pouches that I'm supposed to receive and OMG trials and english....... after today I don't think I can survive a 3hr exam since my legs felt non-existant.

#294 - Blathering

update 23/07/12: Best 2012 school day ! I was in a fit of giggles when  I heard that people broke into the school (again!) and put superglue on the locks of every classroom and staffroom -  hahahaha what were they thinking and who would even bother to do it in a school like mine?! Anyway the whole school had no classes :D After recess,the principal said: "year 12s can line up at the front office to swipe out and go home" and I loved my grade so much then, we were unified - everyone started shouting and screaming and jumping up and down with joy for around twenty seconds, all whilst year 11s were sitting a maths test (:
Anyway, the suspects are either year 12 or year 11 - I would think the latter because I heard someone wanted to sabotage their maths test since they were bad at maths? Anyhoo, today was the freaking best day of year 12 (muck up day comes a close second!) and just hearing we could home whilst all the other grades had to stay was perhaps the best thing I heard all year from a school authority =D


- Still sick! WHYYY.  Tormented by: constant headaches and inability to remain awake no matter how much I sleep....and psychological fear of swallowing tablets
- Really glad the end is near
- and despite all this shit I have to conquer, I still love myself for allowing my relaxation levels to peak (:
- Yay for seeing T and B after so long! :)

Fort Minor, I love inspiration.
This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will
Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain

#293- Friday 13th

Okay so this post is long overdue (you can tell from the title) but nonetheless...
Btw this is disjointed, since I'm not feeling all that wordy...

friday- memorable game of taboo during friend's not-so-surprising- birthday party + saw sweet (: plus pokeable friend

yesterday- went to wowcow but I opted not to buy anything since the flavours weren't that great. Or maybe I just had high expectations since other wowcow stores sell pistachio and apple pie frozen yoghurt and c'mon that sound nice right! But it's okay I had classic Grill'd chips instead, Better get over your picky eating habits because rosemary on chips are so nice.

today- Macquarie. Burger. Noggi.....NOGGI. Took me awhile but I have finally tasted noggi and pretty good, the biscotti wasn't biscotti tho but I am a fan of their blood orange flavour, It's just something about that citrous kick (: oh and the reason why this ties in with friday 13 is because the flavour blood orange is a promotion for that day.

OH yeah, I bought my formal shoes off ASOS very typical of me to buy my shoes online so fingers crossed that they fit and unfortunately I could not find a pair within budget that fit all of my criteria

#292 - Time to lose yourself

I popped by the city today with S and met with my dear pa for lunch which was a delicious Vietnamese roll :) Dymocks was also having their sales, so:

Oh my god I am frothing in excitement. I remember I really really really adored the Stravaganza series four years ago and I was so ecstatic when I found the last book for $2 :D Peter Pan was a pretty good bargain I think. And yayyyy for striking up quaint conversations with old dears in bookstores!
Also strolled into Darrell Lea and bought:

They had a lot of people in their shop so I was like :D so many people supporting the business! I just find it too frustrating that so many businesses are going bankrupt (foodie restaurants, department stores, bookstores, electronics stores etc). It's like: consumers, just because Europe is in a deep shit recession, doesn't mean we are that bad off.

No longer feeling very blue after putting this on repeat:

#291- Lucky?

Went to city yesterday... in heels, but I had a legitimate reason for this so no I'm not crazy. Although I do regret wearing them because my feet are dying from blisters.

You know when I went to pay for my ticket, on peak (yup on peak), but anyhow the ticket machine said 4.80, I put in $5 and to my surprise my change was $4.20. That means I paid 60c for a return ticket to city on peak, lucky!

During the day, I ended up visiting DJ's and I found my dream formal shoes but being my dream formal shoes the price isn't nice so I won't be getting them ):

Also today I found out that there's a moochi at westfield sydney, if only I found out a day earlier.

On happier news, I can endulge in frozen yoghurt wowcow style because it opened yesterday at parramatta on and top of that is grill'd burger and fries-yum can't wait.