I feel like I just lived through an Aaron Sorkin TV episode set in Australia.
So my day was pretty boring. My plan was to go to the library, work on my ePortfolio, go home, make dinner, work some more and then write my entry and go to sleep.
Hell I wasn't even going to bother watching the State of Origin... but then I decided to watch the news for a few minutes to see what the weather was going to be like tomorrow and suddenly we're having a leadership spill again and... well we have a new PM.
As I started to write this Julia Gillard is on TV trying to start working on establishing her legacy with her concession speech, its not a bad effort but I turned it off because I really don't want to listen to anymore politics right now. I've had enough of politics to last me a lifetime.
See, what some people don't know about me is that I used to be a political junkie, I did Political Science for my first degree back in 2006 and followed pretty much everything I could about politics in Australia and internationally. I knew the ins and outs of things that shaped out world so much that the only way I was able to get through a lot of the lead up to the 2008 US election was to be in other countries where I had to pay for the internet. The 2012 election was like straight cut heroin for me, mostly because as a non-American I don't really get to make a choice and can view the whole thing as an outsider without having to really worry about the stakes. Australian politics I'm also a bit of an outsider because I live in the Ryan district which is so strongly Liberal that no matter which way I vote I can't change the outcome. Hell I live in Queensland so even with the Senate it will probably not make much of a difference.
So the last three hours I've been watching ABC1 and reading online all the play-by-plays and seeing where it was all heading. When Shorten changed his support to Rudd it was pretty much over, although the anonymous voting did give me pause for a minute because I thought that maybe some people would shift without saying it. The Labor party have some serious grounds to make up now, and I think the first thing they need to do is seriously re-consider having the election when they said they would. Calling the election so far ahead of time instead of the traditional couple of weeks has been a huge mistake for the Labor party and it has only led them to this mess they found themselves in today. With a clear target date for the election the party faithful behind Rudd had time to mobilise and organise themselves before the actual election instead of running the risk of calling it too late just as the election was called(which would have backfired).
I don't really care who wins, Australia tends to tick by no matter who is in power, but I want the NBN to get to my house before Labor lose power again, or the Coalition to suddenly support it and organise funding.
I spent most of today at the Mount Omaney Library after I deposited all my coins at the bank. Doing more of my work and nearly finishing it. I hate leaving things to the last day but it looks like I'm going to be doing the last 2000-3000 words tomorrow. I think I've got about 4 hours at most ahead of me. I've also worked out why I can't get much enthusiasm up for this assignment, its observational not argumentative. I like arguing in my writing, finding my point of view and validating it while seeking out opposing research to ensure I'm not making a mistake. This assignment is all about just writing down my observations and not really arguing about them. What I saw is what I write. No intellectual jousting, no structured debates and stylistic options for presenting my case, just writing and writing and writing.
And as everyone who reads my blog knows, I just hate writing lots of words.
I also burnt my hand on the oven when I was cooking some chicken this evening. Which kind of sucks.
And my neighbours are yelling everytime Queensland does anything, so I think that we're winning right now. But I can't be sure of that.
YouTube Video of the day.
This guy posts one of these every year. A mashup of dozens of the most popular songs of the year. This is the one for 2012.
Hell I wasn't even going to bother watching the State of Origin... but then I decided to watch the news for a few minutes to see what the weather was going to be like tomorrow and suddenly we're having a leadership spill again and... well we have a new PM.
As I started to write this Julia Gillard is on TV trying to start working on establishing her legacy with her concession speech, its not a bad effort but I turned it off because I really don't want to listen to anymore politics right now. I've had enough of politics to last me a lifetime.
See, what some people don't know about me is that I used to be a political junkie, I did Political Science for my first degree back in 2006 and followed pretty much everything I could about politics in Australia and internationally. I knew the ins and outs of things that shaped out world so much that the only way I was able to get through a lot of the lead up to the 2008 US election was to be in other countries where I had to pay for the internet. The 2012 election was like straight cut heroin for me, mostly because as a non-American I don't really get to make a choice and can view the whole thing as an outsider without having to really worry about the stakes. Australian politics I'm also a bit of an outsider because I live in the Ryan district which is so strongly Liberal that no matter which way I vote I can't change the outcome. Hell I live in Queensland so even with the Senate it will probably not make much of a difference.
So the last three hours I've been watching ABC1 and reading online all the play-by-plays and seeing where it was all heading. When Shorten changed his support to Rudd it was pretty much over, although the anonymous voting did give me pause for a minute because I thought that maybe some people would shift without saying it. The Labor party have some serious grounds to make up now, and I think the first thing they need to do is seriously re-consider having the election when they said they would. Calling the election so far ahead of time instead of the traditional couple of weeks has been a huge mistake for the Labor party and it has only led them to this mess they found themselves in today. With a clear target date for the election the party faithful behind Rudd had time to mobilise and organise themselves before the actual election instead of running the risk of calling it too late just as the election was called(which would have backfired).
I don't really care who wins, Australia tends to tick by no matter who is in power, but I want the NBN to get to my house before Labor lose power again, or the Coalition to suddenly support it and organise funding.
I spent most of today at the Mount Omaney Library after I deposited all my coins at the bank. Doing more of my work and nearly finishing it. I hate leaving things to the last day but it looks like I'm going to be doing the last 2000-3000 words tomorrow. I think I've got about 4 hours at most ahead of me. I've also worked out why I can't get much enthusiasm up for this assignment, its observational not argumentative. I like arguing in my writing, finding my point of view and validating it while seeking out opposing research to ensure I'm not making a mistake. This assignment is all about just writing down my observations and not really arguing about them. What I saw is what I write. No intellectual jousting, no structured debates and stylistic options for presenting my case, just writing and writing and writing.
And as everyone who reads my blog knows, I just hate writing lots of words.
I also burnt my hand on the oven when I was cooking some chicken this evening. Which kind of sucks.
And my neighbours are yelling everytime Queensland does anything, so I think that we're winning right now. But I can't be sure of that.
YouTube Video of the day.
This guy posts one of these every year. A mashup of dozens of the most popular songs of the year. This is the one for 2012.
Click to view