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May 13, 2011
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I caught the bus from Adelaide to Melbourne yesterday.   Twelve hours of road.

I sent text messages to my parents and boyfriend as we passed through towns.  These are my text messages from Australia:

(Disclaimer:  I've edited them a little, mostly the phrasing because its a bit hard to get phrasing right in a text message.  By the way, these are so very, very tiny, very remote Australian towns.  Don't think they are all like this.)

St Arnaud:  


Garden ornaments lurk beneath heavily pruned rosebushes
An Australian flag above
Nationalism flutters beside hotel vacancy signs

Rupanyup:


Mint green houses
Verandas collapse
Flatness stretches to the horizon

Murtoa:  


Churches best suited to congregations of fifteen or less
A terrier waits at the bus stop scratching her fleas
As we snail past

Dimboola:  


Houses are short here
None dare rise far from the ground
Except the hotel
It is missing its roof
The roadhouse is called ‘Desert Edge’
It is telling the truth

Nhill:  


Old men on their bench
Watch our sunlit toilet parade

The highway:


Cars gather in front yards to die rusty deaths
Ennui walks the streets in plain sight
  • Mood: Neutral
  • Listening to: 60s pop
  • Reading: Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid
  • Watching: Dr Who
  • Playing: Lego Starwars
  • Eating: Too much good bread
  • Drinking: Orange juice
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:iconsilentlydamned:
~SilentlyDamned May 30, 2011  Hobbyist Writer
Neat. =)
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:iconhalohid:
Thank you!
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:iconmartinroger:
~martinroger May 17, 2011  Hobbyist Photographer
Damn me for not paying attention to dA and missing your visit to Radelaide. :S
Reply
:iconhalohid:
Ahh, I see! I got those the wrong way around. I actually caught the bus from Melbourne to Adelaide, not vice versa.
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:iconhalohid:
I'm in Adelaide until Saturday actually although I'm working a fair bit in that time.
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:iconmartinroger:
~martinroger May 21, 2011  Hobbyist Photographer
Ah well double unluck, I am working like there is no tomorrow too... thesis thesis !
Hope you enjoyed your stay here !
Reply
:iconhalohid:
I had a very busy but very satisfying time! The show I was commissioned to make went incredibly well and everyone was very happy. Also my parents still live here so that's always lovely to get to see them. :)

Best of luck with your thesis! What's it on?
Reply
:iconmartinroger:
~martinroger May 23, 2011  Hobbyist Photographer
Excellent... congrats !

My thesis is about numerical approaches to simulate shark skin flow in order to implement cavitation mitigation methods... a bit not engaging at first sight but actually pretty colorful and easy to understand.
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:iconhalohid:
I must admit, I've read this five times but I think its sunk in now and is making sense. For some reason my brain just switches off when words like 'numerical' come up. I can be trying with all my might to understand it but it is like pushing a bolder up hill.

But I'm glad you're enjoying it! Was your under-grad in maths or something more zoological?
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:iconmartinroger:
~martinroger May 24, 2011  Hobbyist Photographer
Ahaha fair enough... and you're lucky, cause the original title was even worse. The main idea behind the thesis is to come up with a very detailed computer model (for some reason this sinks in better than numerical model) of shark skin to assess wether its special properties can be used to address maritime industry problems.

And yes and no. My "undergrad" was in France, so we did a lot of maths, but also physics, etc etc to get a "Bachelor's degree in Engineering Sciences". Basically means that we're acquainted with all the science techniques relevant to engineering (including maths, CFD... and bio-mimicry. ). So nothing too zoological, but heaps of personal experience !
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