This afternoon I tried some of the iconic Genghis Khaan energy drink. It's about 49cents Australian, and claims to do just about everything - "especially stimulates brain function and encourages mental activity - reduces pain after physical exertion - had positive effects on the nervous and muscle system and prevents fatigue - a preventive agent against arteriosclerosis - acts as tonic against exhaustion - has detoxicating effect on the liver - a comprehensive agent for increasing stamina, improving physical and mental performance." The can size is only 180ml, smaller than the standard Red Bull at 250ml, and the drink is non-carbonated. It actually contains no caffeine, unlike most 'energy' drinks on the market, though it does carry Taurine. It had "Mixed Fruit Flavor" which makes it taste more like a fruit drink, but with a similar syrupiness that is reminiscent to Red Bull.

with the internet these days. just visit a half dozen sites, checking in on things, but there's nothing to grab the attention. feels like a slightly boring, really slow merry-go-round. so fickle, pressing refresh.

Yes, they finally passed my MTh. About time too.
Now I can get on with starting a PhD.
Carry on.

While Queensland has had floods and then Tropical Cyclone Yasi, Sydney is simply in the midst of an uncomfortable heatwave. Temperatures range from 30 to 40+ Celsius. More in the Western suburbs. Where I live, most nights it doesn't drop below 26C at best. Naturally this isn't very comfortable for anybody. Hoping that it will break tomorrow though.

I started work at the new church last Sunday. We meet a lot of people. There is a very well respected scholar in an overlapping academic field of mine who attends one fo the services. Tomorrow is my first sermon there, so hopefully will get off to a good start.

Might write you an RPG update sometime - currently in a hilarious campaign of Shadowrun.

Watched True Grit and The Fighter recently. Both fine films.

Have also started taking some Scottish Gaelic tuition over Skype with a young guy in the UK. We had our first session this week. A slow start, but I think it will pick up.

last year i took to doing a lot of gym time. the uni gym was right across the road from my postgraduate space, and i'd been wanting to reverse the decline of my fitness. so it became weights 3x a week, plus running and virtual rowing.

of course, with a shift to a new job, it was time to shift gyms. i tried out another uni gym, close to work and the uni i should be studying at, but it wasn't anywhere near as good as my former one, and i was told i needed to talk to their 'membership consultant', who 3 days later hasn't contacted me. too slow...

so today i joined up a local gym (local to work), to continue my weightlifting odyssey. will probably keep going to the local-to-home pool for swimming. and the streets are good for barefoot running.

discovered this morning episodes of 'Speaking our language' online. it was a tv series for teaching gaelic produced in 93-96. But everything in it feels so very 80s. I think we have this collective memory blur of the 80s with the early 90s.

Also very funny, is that there is a mini-soap embedded in the series, so you have a storyline to follow while you learn new phrases. What is funny about it is that in the first episode the poor actors are so limited in what they can say that they have to resort to awkward silences and gestures to convey what is going on.

that's the year it is. and i'm still alive and kicking.

finished and submitted my MTh a few months ago. picked up a gig as a lay preacher for a church for 2011. starting off a PhD this year. been doing a lot of weightlifting. plan to really hammer gaelic this year. and maybe, just maybe, write lj entries.

and if you're still on my friends list, that means i'm still reading.

it seems like as long as i've been on lj, essius has been a doctoral student. is that right? anyway, perhaps now I am getting a glimpse of why graduate studies take so long to get anywhere. I feel like I'm constantly wading through snow, and not rapidly either.

working on hebrew has no relevance to my study, but if i don't claw my way back to the top of that particular cliff now, i probably never will. so i'm plugging away a little at that. actaully, i spend 1.5hrs in the morning going over languages. been doing some good composition work in greek and latin. i know i should be writing things freestyle, but the structure of composition textbooks gives me short manageable chunks that i can carve off and accomplish each day. gaelic is going forward, though not at a tremendous pace.

perhaps i'm spending too much time trying to read background material. i've considered that, and my resolution is to start writing up background/introductory sections for the thesis commencing next week. this will get words on pages, plus help me understand my own ignorances and better address them.

on the other hand, it's probably time i started working on some primary analysis. that's what fridays are for: sitting down with the texts and applying my criteria and writing up data. we'll see how that goes.

2 weeks into lecturing a 7 week course on church history. scope of the course? 2000 years of church history. i have to spend a good 4 hrs prepping for 2 hrs of lecture, which I suppose isn't too bad (except I don't get paid for prep hours). It just feels like a hard slog, trying to cover a vast amount of reading, process, synthesise, and then present in an engaging manner. also means i don't get home to 10pm or so of a wednesday night and i'm pretty tired.

my other sideline project is translating some untranslated chrysostom for money. woohoo to money! it's not a long text, but it chews up a bit of time. as does getting distracted by reading on not-quite-topical areas (impassibility is the latest one).

turned down the job i applied for. too early a start and too definite a finish made me realise that I need to focus on getting this masters done. not ideal though. also need to come up with a phd topic sometime.

the gym has been good to me. some days a struggle to go - feel the pressure of time all of the time. but would be much worse off without good exercise.

that's me

i even have to look at my own journal to work out the last time I posted!

So we are back in the land of Oz. been back a couple of weeks now. the good wife is back at her sucky job. I am back to a life of study and study and more study. i feel a bit lost, reading half a dozen books at once, trying to work out what i know and don't know, and figure a method of compressing oodles of background into a succinct intro section before launching into some analysis and argument. 30K is too long and not long enough all at the same time.

doing a bit of translating of Chrysostom for cash for a guy in the uk. that is a good sideline to be in. helpful to my greek skills as well as the world of patristics.

going for a job interview for a church on friday. sounds like a good guy and a good church. a part of me is not sure i want the job, but i don't have any good reasons not to! see how it works out.

lined up to lecture an evening diploma subject in church history 1 for a term. that should be some good experience. red bull will definitely be required for the job though.

trying to find good healthy patterns again. 1.5 hrs commute in each direction is pretty tiring though, and leaves evenings for doing not-much.

and that is me. reading a lot, not writing much, but still alive and kicking.

oh, and thinking about a mohawk again. maybe if i don't get his job it would be a good sign.

our time here is almost over. sadly we both have colds that are rather persistent. i'd really like us to be better for the trip home on wednesday. not least to avoid being quarantined for H1N1 (for which we both had vaccinations).

it's been good. maybe a little light-on in terms of activity, but a worthwhile trip. hopefully we'll return to mongolia the following july for a longer stint.

we've been here over a week. a tenday in fact. maybe that should be hyphenated, ten-day.

english classes are going okay. one set of classes is easy (more advanced, and the curriculum is clearer), the other more challenging (less english on their side and i always seem to get through their material too quick). we've made a few forays out into the wider world. shopping for mittens for Rachel (semi-successful), a trip with friends to the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar to look at summer houses (lots of snow, very pretty), and the movies (Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, childish but entertaining), had our camera stolen (sad, particularly for the photos we had on it).

i've tracked down 2 13th century latin accounts of travels from europe to Mongolia and back during the height of the Mongol Empire. Thinking of reading through one in the near future. that will be something different from the usual classics.

meat-eating is boring. and requires flossing more.

the snow is thawing. locals tell us it will be gone in a week. no guarantee that it will get much warmer though.

haven't done much study here. or any exercise. we do spend a lot of time inside and at home, but i haven't found any motivation or routine.

daytime temperatures in the last few days range from -20 to today's high of -6. (All temps in this post are centigrade. Get with it USA)

You have to realise, that in Australia it just doesn't get that cold. I grew up on the coast, and it never hit zero in my childhood. It's only in the last few years, living in S-W Sydney, that I've experienced a few below zero evenings/mornings. So, coming to Mongolia is hard for Aussies, it's just a cold we've never known.

Anyway, we're coping. We put on all our layers and bundle ourselves up and trudge out into the snow. We've been here 5 days now, and are starting to get used to life here. We don't speak any Mongolian, which makes a few things tricky, but we're managing.

English classes begin in earnest tomorrow. Today was a warm-up for us, assisting another teacher.

in 19 days.
that is less than 3 weeks! i just realised.

tickets: booked
visas: check

knowledge of mongolian? minimal. in fact, we know about 2 words, sufficient to say hello.

i have finally found, after some serious internet searching, some materials for learning mongolian. peace corps stuff, manuals and (thankfully) some audio. mongolian is, by all accounts, not the easiest language to learn (for a I-E speaker). It's a long way removed syntactically and phonetically from English. So, next two weeks will see some crash-course mongolian happening.

not sure whether i'm excited or what. i guess not really. i'm a bit blaise about everything in life though. i've taken "take it as it comes" to a whole new (pathological?) level. I am looking forward to it, but in a vague kind of way.

no news on the jobs front. we'll be in mongolia for a month, so it was kind of hard to keep looking while knowing i'd have to say, "btw, can't start until april!". so, have enrolled back into full-time in an effort to finish off my master's thesis. progress is slow but steady. i have a desk in this under-ventilated subterranean bunker, with 7 other post-graduates. it's kinda cool, but we'd all appreciate a little more from the administration. reading my way very slowly through chrysostom's homilies on John. the greek is getting marginally easier. i'm starting to get a feel for chrysostom's stylistic features, which is nice.

been going to the gym a lot. that is good.

now, if i could be a little more organised, a little more disciplined, and study a lot more, i'd be happy with each day's effort.

that's all the news with me. oh, and gaelic punk is sensational. bought an LP by oi polloi, all in gaelic; had to get a friend to digitise it for me. anyway, that brings my gaelic punk collection to about 20 tracks. all good!

So the week down in Mollymook was what RPG-holidays always are: days spent lazing, watching cricket, and going to the beach, and evenings spent rolling the dice. we have been playing a WFRP game for some time, set in Kislev, and our week-long jaunt took us into the heart of the mountains, half-in-league with a dark elf sorcerer, to kill an evil Nurgle lord and his army. the climax was suitably climactic.

without a car we had to catch a bus back up, which was fine in the end. The next day I headed off for a camp, with 150 christian teens 16-18yo. It was a pretty fine 5 days too, with some early morning runs, many swims, and lots of bible talks and the like.

Monday onwards I interspersed this by driving across Sydney for a Gaelic course. It was meant to be 2 weeks, but the first week I was down the coast. So I picked it up halfway through. It was a follow on course from one I did a year or two ago. Anyway, it was at just the right level for where I'm at, and the teacher is quite a good one (not that there are (sadly) many Gaelic teachers around here). The week really helped solidify definite articles, genitive forms, and a whole bunch of verb stuff.

But with rail trackwork, the commute became a little massive. So, Mon/Tue I was going from camp to class to camp. Wed onwards it was 2+ hrs on the train each way.

Was groomsmen at a friend's wedding today. Good times. Everyone vaguely important had to be barefoot. A lot of fun for the day, but quite long and tiring.

That is all the news.

I don't care much for nye. It doesn't register on my list of things to care about (along with most holidays).

Finally read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. excellent book. 9/10 from me.

Bought The Witcher: Extended Edition on Steam. Loving it so far (played an hour or so). It's just my kind of atmosphere and story.

Watched Avatar 3D last night. A kindly friend (who had already seen it), came and picked us up and drove us to the cinema. It was pretty enjoyable, though I was disappointed (though forewarned) by the story which could easily have been improved many degrees. Fascinating the amount of internet resources that already exist for learning Na'vi. Unconvinced it will take over from Klingon in the sci-fi languages. I kind of wish people who decide to pick up these languages would just choose a minority language relevant to their heritage our area and learn that. Come on peoples!

Managed to track down a web site selling Oi Polloi's album "Ar Ceòl Ar Cànan Ar-A-Mach". Not easy to find on the internets, but managed in the end.

January is...overpacked.
Week 1: Role-playing holiday with gaming group. [= late mornings, beach, workouts, computer gaming, and late-into-night Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]
Week 2: In theory I am meant to be both (a) leading on a Christian youth leadership camp, and (b) attending week 2 of a Gaelic intensive. Without a car I have no idea how this is going to be manageable or even possible. There are dismally few opportunities for learning Gaelic in Sydney that I really want to get there (especially since i am already missing week 1). hmm.
Week 3: Teaching Latin beginners at the Latin Summer School all week.
Week 4: Preparing 4 talks for a Youth Camp on the weekend following, as well as starting 2010's study regime for the Master's thesis.

It's all a bit overwhelming. Hope you are all well. I read far more than I post. Best new year's wishes to you all.

had a car accident on way home from sister-in-law's place, where we'd spent the weekend.it was raining and there was not enough space to stop and so i ran into the back of a car in front of me. the two cars behind me repeated the same action. nobody was injured (thank God), but it is all very inconvenient indeed! A good friend lives not too far away from the accident, so they came and picked us up, our car was towed off and will be repaired (hopefully), and we had the fun of a 2-hr train trip back home.

january is full of travels and so no car is no good for that. trying now to come up with some alternative transportation arrangements.

getting knocked back for the same job twice should suck. especially when you know your potential employer really likes you. but actually i'm really fine about it and thankful i don't have to decide whether to take a really awesome job or not.

so, i've been talking to 2 churches about a position for next year. they are both good options, with strong pros and each has a few cons. we might be (theoretically) offered both, which would be a real problem for us; this is complicated by the fact that one church will finish their selection process much sooner than the other.

trying not to think it through overmuch, and hoping this decision isn't left entirely in our hands! but it is a good position to be in at this stage.

we went on a holiday, to victoria:

- melbourne has terrible street signage.
- victoria is much smaller than new south wales. this is a bonus when driving.
- the grampians and the great ocean road are plus-plus.
- there is plenty of good vegetarian food to be eaten in melbourne.

we also went to leeton in nsw, for earthminor's grandfather's funeral.

then we came home.

i'm still trying to find a job for next year.

we put in some application papers to join a christian organisation and move to mongolia and work. so, plans there are moving forward.

boss-man says there is no money in the kitty.
equals: no job next year.

the wife and I signed up for couchsurfing, and today we have our first guests staying. one forgets how hard it is to cross language barriers! we have a young couple from Brittany staying with us. today i also realised that i am not much of a tour guide. not extroverted enough, nor knowledgeable about things tourists might like to know or see.

not much else to report. except we tried some tea from brittany and it was very nice.

it's a warm spring saturday. the wife and I have been doing some of that spring cleaning bizzo, trying to clear out some of the junk accumulated over not so many years. pre-emptive to the divesting of materials that will need to take place before picking up our lives and transporting to mongolia.

thinking of getting into some swimming this summer. i need a bit more exercise in my life, and my joints do not appreciate too much running. i think my lungs would appreciate it too.

gaming-wise we have been playing much Warhammer Fantasy role-play. we are at that good point where our characters are starting to turn from hopeless hacks who fail at everything, to veterans who can handle some combat. i am playing a norscan berserker.

study progress is slow. trying to translate my way through Chrysostom's homilies on John, and just don't have a lot of time for it, and the going is hard. i've been going into college (a 2hr walk/train/walk expedition) once a week to just sit in the library and focus. newtown lunches are a bonus.

went down to canberra for a weekend a couple of weeks ago. was part of a weekend school for scottish gaelic. it was a good and productive time for me, not so much for the wife whose gaelic to that point was nil. anyway, picked up a few gaelic cds afterwards. julie fowlis is great.

work situation is up in the air. fairly pessimistic about having a job here next year, seems unlikely there will be enough funding. knocked back for another position, and have applied for a third, but haven't heard much back. there's a possibility this will bring forward our plans for mongolia, but we'll see.

i walked many miles around sydney today to get a copy of the new raised fist cd.

i was successful.

that is all.

oops my last entry was july 22nd. and now it's aug 26th.

hmm. what can I tell you?

I got my last exam results back and they were very good. My thesis proposal was also approved and so I am now working on that project. At the moment it involves a painful commute to college to work in the library for hours on end translating Chrysostom. I could skip the commute, but since I have no other office, I kind of require the psychological scene-change. Staying at home just leads to non-work. So far I have translated 1 homily.

my church is running out of money and probably i don't have a job next year. trying to find a position for a single year is not an optimal position to be in. so that's not a great situation to be in.

i finished a preaching series all the way through John, a chapter a week. now one of our trainees is doing some preaching so I'm enjoying a little break.

yup, that's about all the news.

maybe it's just the bits of the interwebs that I read, but pretty much everyday I read one or more articles about increasing invasions of privacy/abuses of anti-terrorism laws/stupidity of policing in the UK. the country sounds seriously messed up. why on earth would i visit such a place?

Edit: a collection of links...
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