L'Exil...est retourné!

So here I am sitting in a hotel room somewhere in Chinatown in Singapore central, sneezing away merrily to a cold/flu type thing I picked up in E’s flat and that got passed around in a matter of a couple of hours to everyone. It’s 7.30 in the morning and the birds are out. I’ve just finished reading George Orwell’s ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’, which gives an interesting insight into post-war living for beggars and the whys and wherefores of poverty. “A beggar, looked at realistically, is simply a businessman, getting his living, like other businessmen, in the way that comes to hand. He has not, more than most modern people, sold his honour; he has merely made the mistake of choosing a trade at which it is impossible to grow rich.” I’ve been thinking about some of things about London and the U.K, and what would I take home back to N.Z with me from the place? Firstly, the diversity of life: how many other places in the world can you find just about every creed, race and na...

Just found out I have a 30 hour layover in Singapore on my way home - so suddenly the £450 flight doesn't look so good any more! I've booked myself into a hotel to ease the pain, courtesy of my overdraft, and intend to have a look around while i'm there. Any ideas? Well only two more days to go in old Blighty, for the moment anyway. Rugby World Cup 2007 watch out! Aside from that, not much else to report. Sent my boxes back home by freight this morning. Packep up the shisha pipe in various guises so as not to appear to suspicious to MAF and NZ Customs. It is crazy that shisha pipes are illegal to bring into NZ, that rules out the majority of the Muslim male world where just about everyone does it, it's almost a racist policy. Went out for a very nhice meal last night to Singburi, a Thai restaurant in Leytonstone that has the feel of someone's rumpus room, very cosy. Ate so much my stomach hurt. Wellington to win by 12 and under.

Today i've done nothing. But sleep. I should be phoning up shipping companies to find out how much it costs to box stuff home, but I already know. I have a job interview in Milton Keynes on Tuesday for an Open Space Officer or something like that, it is a contract job and they want to pay me £22/hr. That's good money, but it's Milton Keynes. To be honest, I can't be bothered. I've found a scholarhsip at the University of Sydney for coastal stuff studying under the right guy, doing the right thing (almost) - $25k/yr for 3 years. This last month has been all about options. Australia? Work? New Zealand and Summer? PhD? London and pounds sterling? It's been a bizarre expererience, so much so that I didn't really now what to do. Like a buffet or smorgasboard with too many treats to chose from. However, i've made my decision now and I'm sticking to it, through thick or thin. I feel kind of lucky that I have so many options, I know a lot of people who woul...

After hours of deliberating, days even of sitting aroound, pacing, and trying to figure out what to do now that the visa has expired and I have no plans...I have a plan! I've just bought my ticket home to Kiwiland for the bargain price of £465 one-way, and now I ave somehting to do! Yippee! I was going crazy there for awhile, I thik my brain has been asleep for too long, it's time I put it into work. So the plan is this: head home and go to the beach and check out the Mount Reef, get some contract work maybe at EBOP or somewhere else around town, save up some cash, figure out what i'm going to do around Xmas, start formulating the PhD ideas, look for Uni's with scholarships, look for work in Australia, find it and start it, a couiple of special weddings to attend in NZ, flag the Cricket World Cup, and look forward to the Rugby World Cup in France! Yeah. Sweet, what a weight off my mind!

The genius posts were inspired by this...and the movie 'The Assassination of Richard Nixon' - a very depressing movie.

From the Oxford Dictionary online: 'genius' /jeeniss/ • noun (pl. geniuses) 1 exceptional intellectual or creative power or other natural ability. 2 an exceptionally intelligent or able person. 3 (pl. genii /jeeni-i/) (in some mythologies) a spirit associated with a person, place, or institution. 4 the prevalent character or spirit of a nation, period, etc. — ORIGIN Latin, also in the sense ‘spirit present at one’s birth’, from gignere ‘beget’. Everyone has heard the expression "...great minds think alike". but what does it mean? What is it referring to? Do great minds really think alike? If all minds thought alike, would we still get innovation? Genius can also be defined as: = intuis (wisdom) = cognis (knowledge) = technis (practical ability) and in addition, those people are often in possession of a 'special vision'. How valid is an IQ test? IQ? Is it just a social construct? What does it measure exactly - capability/cognitive ability? What about emo...

Apparently that is the chemical reaction for crack cocaine...I was reading about the Mongrel Mob on Wikipedia and then the Crips and then DRUGS. If you get a chance you should watch the Ross Kemp documentary on Gangs in N.Z - something you don't really get to see back home.

another video pilfered from Youtube...

Extract from Stuff.co.nz regarding Wellingotn's upcoming game against Canterbury at the Caketin, and Neemia Tialata shows he is just a gigantic mama's boy: It will be McCaw's first return to Westpac Stadium in a red-and-black jersey since the Crusaders match on April 1. He was an obvious target for the Hurricanes that night, and when their inability to blunt his impact boiled over, things turned nasty. Flanker Jerry Collins hurled the ball at McCaw's head and prop Neemia Tialata looked keen to throttle McCaw as he lay on the ground. The incident sparked an outcry that Tialata has since said he was oblivious to till he got home later that night. "I knew straight away when I saw the look on my mum's face that I had done something wrong," he said. "I hadn't thought much of it at the time but I could recall that I had my hands around Richie's throat at one stage. "She pulled out the jandal and threatened to hit me that night – so I have learn...

Extracts from the diary: That's exactly what it is. None of this Personal Identity Number (PIN) crap. This was from a cash machine in Maroc - Casablanca even. I've decided it would be a good idea to make up some travellers business cards to hand out to the random people you meet on your travels. After all, you never have a pen or a piece of paper. But what if you just had a stack of 'personal cards' - could come in handy at the pub too. Everyone can swap myspace.com accounts...and count all their friends! Wow, it must be comforting to know you are their 253rd friend and are part of someone's extended network...Given the amount of people I tend to meet it would be pretty much impossible to keep in contact with all of them. Maybe that's a interesting aside of the internet - the ability to keep hold of acquaintances more easily. So the question is when do acquaintances become friends? In saying that i have and still do have regular contact with a lot of people I h...