I’m all worded out. I can’t possibly think of anything to say. I have completely used up my allotted amount of words for the rest of eternity.

In short, I finished my research project (the ten thousand word beast). Well, sort of. I finished my first draft - which, hopefully, is the last. Or next to the last. Its 9,760 words long. If you account for every word in the document (the appendices are massive) then it comes in at over 19,000. I be proud. I know this is not a real thesis and I know I didn’t put in a 10th of the time those weird folks would that do the Masters by Research, but still…for OMD it’s a Fightin’ Texas Aggie hell of a lot of words.

I am real close to agreeing to the job I was offered here in Brisbane. It really sounds like a neat job and a good opportunity to grow and use some of the nifty stuff I learned in class these last two semesters. I still need to work out how the whole tax thing is going to affect me though. But I didn’t get as far as building a budget and looking at rental and house prices to get an idea of where I would live, transport costs and all the other misc. stuff that pops into existence when you actually settle down someplace. I hope to have a firm decision today or tomorrow.

In other news:

I’m on mid-semester break this week. I’m REALLY on a break. I’m all caught up with school work so I get to go a full week without having to deal with a single paper, report or book. It’s good to be me.

Howdy All,

I managed to finish up my HR paper that I was so diligently avoiding with the help of Season 03 of Frasier. It’s my final paper for that part of the class and boy am I’m glad it’s done. I can’t wait to turn the silly thing in and be through with it, once and for all.

I was pooping around online tonight - avoiding my next assignment - when I came across this picture.

It’s from the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. It made me laugh - and it’s my new wallpaper. I posted a 1400 x 900 pic in the misc. gallery if anyone wants to use it as their wallpaper.

So I had a third interview today. It went well. They said an offer would be coming from them shortly.

It’s a bit of a leap for me to ponder staying here on a more long-term basis. I mean, what am I to do? Aussie aren’t trying to kill me. And the roos aren’t out to pummel me into submission. So why the hesitation? I think it’s because the potential [permenant] move represents some closure for me.

I think the biggest issue is that I am facing the prospect of settling down into a more “stable” lifestyle. That means I’m going to have to develop a social network of friends. I’ll have to develop hobbies, shop for furniture, and learn to throw a boomerang.

Oh, and learn to drive on the wrong side of the road.

I’m actually quite excited at the prospect. A whole new chapter with fresh new challenges and new problems to tackle. I can’t wait.

In other news - I’m finding it hard to motivate myself. I have a couple of papers to do and am dragging my feet to the tune of Season 03 of Frasier. I’ll just need to regroup and focus on it this weekend, sans Frasier.

So, I had to make an appointment with the doctor because of a constant chest pain.

I’ve had chest pains for a while now. It started during around November of 2004, whilst I was in Iraq. I went to see the medic back then and they said it was acid indigestion. They were medical “professionals” so I believed them. They said to drink lots of milk.

Needless to say over the last four years I’ve drained enough cows of their milk to satiate the dairy requirement of a small third world country. Still, it never really worked for me, unless I actually HAD acid indigestion, and I was loath to go back to the medics for a second opinion.

Lately the pains have gotten worse and been coupled with shortness of breath so I decided it was time to visit the doctor.

The ticker is fine, but I have asthma. But the pain, it seems, is brought about by stress couple with inflamation in my lungs. The doctor recommended I begin jogging a couple of times a week to beat the stress and gave me some kind of special inhaler. Argle Bargle. Jogging. Phfft. Who jogs, honestly?

He also asked that I change my diet to include more fish because my HDLs were low, but he said that might be normal for me, he doesn’t know. Come to think of it, neither do I.

All in all he said my case is terminal. I only have about 50-60 years to live. I better start living. I have a lot of places left to see on my “OMD List.”

How do you define overseas?

It sounds like a simple question but it’s not as straight forward as you might first imagine. For instance. I’ve had two interviews in Brisbane in the last two weeks. Both asked me what my intentions are beyond November, when school is over. I told both potential employers that, as of right now, intend to stay overseas and work as that is where the job opportunities are right now.

Both interpreted the comment to mean I intend to leave Australia in November.

Le sigh. I can’t blame them really. Any non-Australia destination is overseas for them. Shoot, going back to Texas to work would be overseas to them, just not for me. I need to figure out a way to answer that question on their terms.

In other news:

A skateboarder breaks the speed limit in Germany

And I finished my Research Project Proposal. It is finished. Well, it will be tomorrow when I hand it. I plan to celebrate this event by throwing boomerangs around the backyard in an attempt to pre-emptively strike at the magpies before they attack me. If that doesn’t work, I’ll just chicken fry some roo.

If I have learned one thing during my tenure living upside down in the land Down Under it’s that the Aussies know how to do fireworks. Riverfestival started this evening with a fireworks display called Riverfire. It was a 30 minute firework display that included two F-111 doing a dump and burn at the beginning and end of the show…it was impressive. Here is a pic. I will post more as my room mate gives me more.

Riverfire from our balcony

Dump and Burn from our Balcony

Would you believe that I finished my Research Project Proposal? No? Well, you’re partially right. I finsihed my 4,382,238th draft of it this morning and shot it to my supervisor to give me some last minute feedback. I meet with him on Monday about it so I’m not touching it or thinking any proposalish thoughts until Monday evening. It’s a beast. At least in OMD terms. The proposal is right at 4,000 words, 6600 if you count the the stuff I removed which will make its way back into the report when I get around to that. Still, this is peanuts compared to what an actual thesis would be. Thank the maker that I won’t be doing that!

It’s been a few days since I updated, and even longer since I gave an OMD love-life update so at the request of a particular reader I’ll give you the low-down on the current goings on across the Pacific puddle.

There ain’t none.

Well, no love life to be exact. I don’t exactly have a social life these days, not that it’s really anyone’s fault but my own…or class…or any other such non-proposalish notion. Women are just plain hard to come by - well at least available, level-headed, responsible femme-fatales. At least in my circles. There are plenty of girls, but they annoy me to no end. I like being an adult, I would hope my girlfriend would be one too.

I did meet a gorgeous gal the other day, though. She’s a scheduler and we talked scheduling for a bit. It was nice to chat work with a non-dude scheduler and a pretty one at that. For those who seem to find my romance life humorous (in the most obscene pathetic sort of way) be happy because flaws with this meeting abound. For starters she’s so far out of my league it’s not even funny. Kind of like that model and stripper debacle a few years back. Second, she lives something like a billion miles away. I realize that puts her home somewhere around the orbit of Saturn, but when you don’t have a car (or you’re related to sisterOMD) everything is referred to in Saturtonian distances. Oh well, I’ll always have work.

On the upside, I did get another interview set up for next week. Odd how that works. I’m told don’t bother applying for a work visa and I wind up getting three interviews in Australia alone. Go figure, right? It’s a little wierd to tell you the truth, but a good wierd. It’s letting me flex my face-to-face interview muscles. Having worked in the field, most of my interviews have been either on the phone or impromtu affairs over lunch during the work day. Needless to say suits and business casual weren’t the order of the day. Regrettably I neglected to bring any business casual attire on this trip because of the visa issue so I have to go shopping this weekend. Argle Bargle.

I need sisterOMD and mommaOMD something fierce right now. They’re my shopping cadre. They help me stay coordinated. I personnally think they just like to see me spend my money on clothes but they help me look business like in some wierd OMD way. I doubt I’m going to be able to afford bringing them over for this little shopping trip and without a suitable feminine companion I’ll have to do this on my own.

Ever’day’s an adventure. Or so I like to say. With a little luck. next week will be such a day only in a smart business like OMD aura.

It’s been a trying time in the life of OMD lately: I’ve been working.

So, I’ve been doing research for my research project. It seems that Gen X’ers, like myself, are not loyal and are distrusting, rebelious, and negative. I don’t know who those people are, but they’re idiots. Just because I happen to see the world as half-empty is no reason to start pigeon-holing OMD by parading around a series of proclomations as the truth. What do they know about OMD? And how can they expect OMD to be loyal to anything when there’s so many non-truth spouting people writing books telling him what he should do.

I had a realization courtesy of MommaOMD today. It seems I’ve used up my alloted words and now have to borrow some from SisterOMD and DaddyOMD. What does this mean? It means they’re not going to have anything to talk about until I’m through with my research reports.

I think I highlighted in an earlier post the plethora of writing I have to do this semester. Well, I’ve averaged just under 1,000 words each day of class. That’s 19,353 words so far. I think that’s low though because I only counted what drafts I’m currently working as well as those I’ve already finished. Anyway, it’s a lot considering I loath writing (ironic, I know, seeing how update the world via text on a website).

In other news:
I’ve been talking to a couple of potential employeers for post grad school work. One job is here in Brisbane, one is in an as-yet-undisclosed location, and I have some people wondering if I’ll be heading back to Iraq or Afghanistan. Work abounds, so despite my being “negative” I’m optimistic.

Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of: His lips are sealed, or His sister is speechless.

Oh, to be me right now. I know you wish it were so. Any reasonable person, or facsimile there-of would wish it. I shudder to think of a world without me and without people who wish they could be me.

I actually finished everything this week and got caught up. Well, sort of. Not really, but close enough that you wish you could do the same. That’s enough for me to be happy right now.

Some things I did this week (or rather in the last two-three days):

I managed to belt out 10 pages today, fully referenced according to the asinine QUT Harvard standard or similar OMD variant, which completed the first week’s short answer assignment. I wonder what a long answer assignment would be like.

I also managed finish a 4 page, fully reference…oh forget it. At any rate, I finished my first “diary entry” for Human Resources. I’m not certain what the diary is supposed to mean - it’s not a diary entry in the normal sense of the word. It’s supposed to be an explanation (non-academic prose) of a topic covered in lecture. Anyway, the first of 10 is now done.

I also got my new cell phone. It’s sweet. Here the link to the manufacturer of my cool, up to date (sort of) new technological communication tool: OMDs cool cell phone. It does all kinds of cool things - like play MP3s and movies.

What kind of new things will next week hold? Just sit tight, mi amigos. I know you can’t wait to find out how much you want to be me but you’ll have to - I’m not clairvoyant…yet.

Well, it’s official. I hate spam. No, I’m not talking about the prepackaged meat product. Although, if you knew anything about me then you’d know that as far as I’m concerned the two aren’t mutually exclusive here. I hate spam because I just had to delete 699 posted comments that were all spam. Will the madness never end?

One of my room mates has decided he likes fajitas. At least the OMD variation of them. Variation in the sense that they’re more psuedo-fajitas because I can’t cook. Still, he likes them and is learning all sorts of things from me. Like, how to use the microwave to cook most foods. Or, how to use paper plates for EVERYTHING so that you don’t have to wash dishes. And, how to keep a kitchen somewhat clean (a hard lesson I had to learn myself by throwing away every cooking utensil I own…twice). In addition to learning how to survive bachelorhood on nothing but psuedo-fajitas, quesadiallas, nachos, and coke he’s also picked up tobacco. Oh, and let’s not forget the most important lesson of all: how to work hard so that you have a heart attack by 40 years of age. I’m quite proud of that one in particular.

In other news, I just finished a 1500 word report (final draft to be done Saturday) which is just one of 10 that I have to do for this class (not counting the group report due at the end of the semester). While I’m on the topic of school work I’m going to rant a little bit. This is utter insanity. See if you can follow along and spot my major issue with this semester (recall I’m doing a Masters by coursework).

Class one: requires roughly 6 - 1500 word reports, along with a group presentation, group report requiring an unspecified word count, and an exam.
Class two: requires a group report with presentation and an exam.
Class three: requires 10 - 1500 word reports and a group report (no exam…whew!).
Class four: requires a “mini-thesis” and a series of journal entries detailing my “reseach journey.”

Ok, did we spot the odd man out here? I’m used to reports, proposals, projects, and the like. That’s why I signed up for a Masters by coursework. Had I wanted to do a “research project” covering some as yet unresearched topic using some as yet undecided research methodology (otherwise known as a thesis) I would have signed up for…take a guess. Masters by Research Project (or whatever they call it).

So everyone goes into the class with some idea of what they thought it was going to be about: some massive research project in which we had to develop some proposal along with all the associated materials (SOW, cost plan, schedule, risk assessment, procurement plan, etc.), do a presentation to sell the idea and write up a report about it. We were all ready for that. We’d even talked about it briefly last semester identifying who we were going to team up with. We’d all been led to believe that was where the “capstone” course was going. But oh-no-no. We’ll have them do a “mini-thesis” because we didn’t take the time to develop a project they could all learn something from and use in the real world.

Well, at least one of the guys in class gave me a lead on a cool mining job starting in Janurary. I think I could make that work for me unlike this stupid, idiotic, ill-conceived, poorly planned excuse for a class. The upside is that I’ve figured out my topic and I think it’ll be cool.