Wrapping up the Year 2009

It wasn't supposed to be a good year according to the Chinese Fung Shui for me, and it wasn't.

I counted myself lucky that at least my study goes smoothly, although I did not achieve very good results I managed to get myself graduated in time by the end of the year and got my honours offer from University of Adelaide.

Jobs are pretty hard to find I would say, none of my applications were even responded. But as I decided to continue my study and escape for another year, all I could hope for is that the next year would be better. I'm still on a part time job but changed spot, worse than the last job obviously but I won't stay in Melbourne for long anyway so I don't have to cope with it for long.

I've met the first horrible landlady in my life and stayed in her house for a month and a half. I've never met anyone so greedy, and slutty enough to screw the tradie working in the house in front of us, to get a special discount maybe?

I am starting to feel that I am getting old. I never had this thought before. In my plan for life ten years back I decided that I would never grow old, that is, I will kill myself when I'm... Back then I set a target of 30 so that I would not grow older than that. Seems this date had to be changed because I am already feeling myself old? That is, if I still wish to do so, which I'm no longer sure.

No luck in love as I said many times before. broke up with one and nothing comes my way after that. Melbourne is not the city for the one that I was meant to be with, it's quite obvious now after all these years. And I'm leaving Melbourne.

Will the world really come to an end at 12.21.12? I wasn't worried. There is nothing I could do if it is true and nothing would change if it isn't. Just live as we always live until the day comes then see what happens. Getting prepared for the end of the world is like an ant training his muscles the second before he was crushed between your fingers.

Copenhagen

Media coverage on the climate change conference in Copenhagen is everywhere these days that you can't actually turn a blind eye on. Seems that I should not just keep quiet on this one.

Although many would say that there is not yet scientific proof that human activity is causing global warming, I do personally believe so the same way that there is no scientific proof of existence of God but many still believe in it. Anyway this is not the point of this post.

The developing world is playing a bad role in this conference as far as I heard, taking climate change hostage to ask for economical compensation/benefits from the developed world. China, again, is one of the most shameless countries amongst.

The amount of greenhouse gas emission in China is only second to the United States at the moment and growing fast. It is foreseeable that the country will soon be releasing more greenhouse gas than any other country in the world. However, China is trying to evade its responsibility of reducing greenhouse gas emission because the US is saying that the funds it is giving would not go to China because they consider China a developed country. (Well it would do so anyway, that's just an handy excuse)

Should China actually be seen as a developing country? The Chinese government insists so naming a low per-capita GDP. Well, while the metropolitan people are enjoying every convenience of the developed world, there are people in the countryside living in extreme poverty. While the poor Chinese might be responsible of releasing ignorable amounts of greenhouse gas the metropolitan people are responsible of emitting the same or even larger amounts of greenhouse gas than people in the developed world. While one could split the poor countryside of China from metropolitan China and demands that funds only go to the countryside, the government would almost certainly never do so (just track back where did the donations for Sichuan earthquake go last year), all they want is free patented technologies and funds from the developed world and use them to boost its already deformed GDP, then use the data to continue deceiving its people of its growth despite the fact that people are ripped off by the government, and keeping its governence.

New vocabulary seems to be what the Chinese government is playing at the moment, 'reducing 45% of emission per unit GDP', clever, but hypocritic nonetheless. As we all see, China's GDP is growing at a significant speed and momentum (although its people are actually getting poorer). With the growth of GDP switching from second to third industry the emission per unit GDP would naturally reduce, but that does not mean the total emission of the country will decrease, quite the opposite, it would still be increasing. Let's do the maths, say the total GDP is 10 per year and per GDP unit emission is 1 in the year 2005, the total emission would be 10. There are 15 years between 2005 and 2020, with the GDP growth rate of 8% per annum, the GDP will become 31.72 in the year 2020, with 0.55 per GDP emission target achieved the total emission of China would become 17.45. See that? A 74.5% increase in the amount of emission! while the Chinese government blames that the target set by the US of a 17% reduction on greenhouse emission as not 'serious' enough, what about themselves trying to deceive the world and emit more greenhouse gases themselves? It is just a dirty trick because it's so obvious to most people that 45>17.

Tackling global warming is a global project that requires cooperation among all countries because the developed world and the developing world exist on the same earth. If the developed world works hard to reduce emission while the developing world is doing nothing or even increasing the amount of emission, it would just be an expensive political show with no winners eventually, because the global warming is not stopped and the huge amount of money the developed world spent on themselves and helping the developing world is giving nothing in return. The developing world might be benefitted by the funds at first but when consequences of global warming kick in they would be as fragile as everyone else.

Eventful Day Huh?

Well.

Got a call from my boss in the afternoon, telling me that I don't need to work on Friday, which means, I completely lost the job I've been working for two and a half years... Well I am leaving Melbourne anyway and I have told my boss that, but I still need that money to pay back my credit card obviously... :S Anyway I couldn't say nothing hanging up the phone, all desparate and started working harder on my job hunting.

It was within a few minutes that I got an email from the honours coordinator in University of Adelaide telling me that I have secured my place for the Honours program for Viticulture and Oenology. I thanked him promptly of course and does not know how to react now, should I be happy or sad? It was all too sudden.

Then, just before dinner, I got another call from a restaurant that I left my resume last week, I was to be on training tomorrow there as a waiter. Well, a job is absolutely something that I am desparate for, and there it is. I thought my hope was gone and there it is. Well, hope this works out. This really relieved me a bit although I don't think this job would pay any good.

That's two good news against one bad then. I would consider it a good day.

Now

Exams, finished. Honours application, submitted. Job hunting, bit lazy but working on it. Results,my greatest fear is not how I did but rather whether they would be out at all. Visas, haven't started applying as I don't even know which to apply yet, depends on whether I'm getting a job or go for further study. Family, coming to visit me in Australia in exactly two weeks. My room, needs tidying. Graduation ceremony, depends on my results and whether they come out at all. Weight, I am scared to weigh myself now. Computer, upgraded to Windows 7. Love, no luck as always.

Well so here I am. Sitting here in front of my computer for the first time in quite a while - I've been cut back from my job as they needed to save costings and replaced me with the boss herself so they don't pay wage on weekends. The resumes I've sent out the other day got no reply as expected. But my situation is delicate anyway - I could work most of the time til one week before Christmas, then available again after Christmas. I don't think I could get a job before Christmas at all because there's only like two three weeks til then.

I think I might go out with friends tonight, well it's been too long since the last time I did so as I always work on weekends. Yes as I was cut back from my job I'm now pretty tight on money but I'll still go for it, just for one night.

BidPax?

While you would think wow $13 for an iPod Touch 32G or $15 for an Xbox is cheap, think again.

Each bid allows you to raise the price by 1c, while the bid itself costs $0.6-$1 depends on how many bids are you buying in bulk (buying 500 bids for $300 gives $0.6 per bid). Let's just say everyone is buying the largest bulk and hence every bid costs $0.6, a $13 iPod Touch would cost all bidders 1300 bids, i.e. $780, look, the final price $13 is nothing comparing to the bidding cost. How much does that iPod Touch cost? $399 delivered on the official Apple store. Same calculation, you could see bidders paid $900 bidding cost for the Xbox.

So how much did the winning bidder actually paid? Only one bidder in this bid is not possible because nobody is competing you might get the goods for 1c that's $0.61 for the whole thing. So start from two bidders, the case is still easy, $780/2 = $390 for each bidder, meaning that the winning bidder paid $403($390+$13) for the $399 iPod (surprise surprise) while the losing bidder paid $390 and get nothing! In the case of more bidders the bidding cost for each person cannot be calculated for exact but if one bidder is intending to outbid anybody whenever a new bid is placed, he pays half of the bidding cost, which in the iPod case is $390.

I would love to be a seller on BidPax but I think the company is the only seller here cos they obviously make a lot of money out of those who didn't do the math prior :P

Vegetarian Hypocrisy

I have noticed that increasing population of this world is going vegetarian. Reasons?

Animal cruely. As if there wasn't cruelty practiced on plants! Potatoes, tomatoes and many others are skinned and cut into pieces. Leeks in eternal torture whenever the leaves grow to a certain level is cut and they have to grow it again. Basil and parsley planted in pots in the kitchen are nipped off their best leaves whenever needed. Cabbages and cucumbers are left immersed in salty, sour and stinky solutions until totally rotten before eaten. The only difference is that you (consumers) are often the ones who practise such cruelty towards their vegetarian food. That plants do not express their feelings like a dying cattle or lamb with their eyes in those stunning pictures does not mean they do not have feelings.

Health. Nutritionally speaking, a vegetarian diet hardly supports the well being of human. A simple example is omega-3 fatty acids, which are not made within the body and are responsible for modulating inflammation and other allergic reactions are mostly sourced from fish, vegetarian wise they are only found in tiny amounts in nuts. Omega-6 fatty acids, on the other hand, although also essential, are responsible for enhancement of such allergic reactions. Omega-6 fatty acids are the ones that are available abundantly in plants. A shifting to a vegetarian lifestyle is a huge interruption to the balance of intake of omega-3:omega-6, suggested ratio 1:3-4, is currently 1:30-50 in the developed world. This could also be one of the causes of people getting increasingly allergic to increasing number of materials in these countries.

Obesity. Well at first I found it interesting that vegetarian people in Australia are still way overweight, but when I found out their only non-alcoholic drink is sodas I don't wonder anymore.

I am not suggesting a better way here, I don't see one. This is a cruel world, if you are not able to be cruel to any other species, you die. Going vegetarian does not mean you are any less cruel, you are just hypocrite plus you are risking your own well-being.

Future

I'm graduating. Sounds cool? What about the things after that? Find a job, if I'm not lucky enough, continue my study for an honours project, and if I'm not lucky enough even for that, keep finding a job until the next year honours open application... In whichever case, I'll have to get a new visa to stay in Australia.

I don't actually know where to from here. I don't see a future ahead of me yet, I am not even sure if I would be graduating this sem (well 70% sure I could but anything could happen). A job is even more blur. I haven't started applying for many of them yet, well there are vintage jobs available in Mildura which I have applied but even if I get an offer it's only a vintage. The chance of staying after the vintage is quite slim. On to honours, I don't know if my results are good enough among the applicants, they weren't very good to me at all... I hope I could talk the professors into having me, but then if I got a job somehow I'll have to defer that offer, which doesn't seem quite good... Anyway, I'll try to apply for both and see what happens. Wish things turns out OK...

And for now, I should only concentrate on my upcoming exams in these few weeks left as a student, probably ever.

Adults in China Anyone?

I have been thinking whether there are actually any adult in China in the government's eyes these days.

The government had been censoring the internet, movies, TV shows, books and everything it could get its hand on in the name of providing 'a better environment for the growth of our youths'. How about the adults? They are supposed to have the responsibility for the adult rated materials and the like yet they are not provided access to those materials. No erotic magazines, no porn sites, does that really mean China is a paradise free of any sort of indecency? Quite the opposite. In some parts of China thrives one of the world's most prosperous prostitution industry.

People could still get access to porn somehow if they really wanted to, not all the porn sites are blocked and there would be new ones every day that was yet to be identified, P2P networks could still be used, there are plenty of street vendors out there that sell pirated DVDs.

What is the censoring targeting then? The second largest category of censored websites and other publications is so-called the 'intentions to overthrow the government' or 'splittest voice' etc., i.e. different political views from the government i.i.e. the call for democracy.

It might be laughable to raise this questione 'is there any adults in China?', however, with that 'do as you're told' government having so many followers in reality and on the internet even from outside of China (see comments/discussion of youtube and wikipedia on some controversial pages, which are currently blocked by the Chinese government, there are still plenty of pro-Communist Party voices), it is doubtful that whether people do have their own thoughts at all besides the ones they were told by the government. All they ever know besides the education they had been through is scheming against each other among the closest work fellows and families for their own benefit, the non-existence of everything besides money, corruption and bribery. Total lost of beliefs, total lost of justice, total lost of basic human rights, total lost of morals, total lost of voice of people and dysfunction of media, frenzy destruction of the environment and ecology, lack of sense of security as a result of insufficient medical, housing, employment and retirement assurance, continual decrease of quality of life of people despite booming economics... The problems of China is countless and incurable.

What did I see from the March of the 60th anniversary of governing of the Communist Party? Absolute regularity of steps, absolute emptiness of streets of Beijing, war-time security level of the city.

The beauty of Fascism.

Organic Foods

I kept telling myself that it is time to update my blog but I am still too busy with my assignments and stuff. So here it is, for the first time I am actually slack enough to put my academic assignment from uni straight up here in my blog. It does have a point though, I hope.

Introduction

Organic foods is the fastest growing session in the food industry worldwide, with more than 15-20% annual growth in retail sales comparing to the 2-3% of the food industry as a whole. (Willer and Yussefi, 2006) On one hand the strong growth reflects the awareness of organic food to consumers and the strong concern of them towards their well-being. On the other hand, many of the consumers who ‘eat organic’ do not even have a proper idea of what organic food is and what are the benefits of organic foods, let alone what impact organic foods have in terms of the environment, growers and various other aspects. Most consumers who ‘eat organic’ believe that organic foods are beneficial to health, more nutritious than conventional foods, environmentally friendly, taste better, sustainable. Is that really so?

What are Organic Foods?

According to a USDA definition (NAL, 2002), organic food is

“Produced without: antibiotics; growth hormones; most conventional pesticides; petroleum- based fertilizers or sewage sludge-based fertilizers; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation”
This definition is similar to the definitions given by other scientific authorities; however, there is no implications of health benefit, food safety, enhanced nutrition or even sustainability of the farming practise in the definition of organic foods.

History

Before broad-acre/industrialized farming was introduced in early 20th century, all farming practise could be considered ‘organic’ according to the definition referred to above. It was long after the industrialization of farming that the term ‘organic food’ emerged.
In the earlier years of organic foods while no certification authorities are available, people who are interested in organic foods have to buy direct from the grower, visit their niche farms and get to know the farming practise going on in the farm, the so-called ‘Know your farmer, know your food.’ With the continuous growth of demand for organic food, certification authorities for organic foods were initialized by either government or private organizations and the certified products are then labelled ‘certified organic’ in the marketplace for identification.

Practise

As in practise, production of organic foods could use certain chemicals at limited level if they are sourced naturally instead of synthetically. For example, Bt toxin, a bacterial extract from Bacillus thuringensis, is applied in organic farming as a ‘natural’ pesticide. (Goldberg, 2000)
Instead of sticking to cultivating on niche/boutique style small farms when organic foods were first introduced into the market, as the demand for organic food products continues to grow, large broad-acre style farms practising organic production had emerged. There are concerns that large-scale farming of organic products undergoing similar processes as conventional production, and furthers the intimacy of farmers and consumers to their food. As a result, the concept of ‘beyond organic’ is developed, which aims at stricter legislation on organic production without compromising to synthetics. (Pollan, 2006)

Certification

As demands for organic foods growing fast that people who do not have time or willingness to get to know their farmers are willing to eat organic, many governments establish specific agencies for organic product certification. In Australia the most recognized certified organic products bear a 'Australian Certified Organic’ label awarded by Biological Farmers of Australia.

Current Condition

Organic food is the fastest growing section of the food industry within Australia and around the globe, which accounts for 2-3% of the total retail sales in the year 2006. (Willer and Yussefi, 2006) A large proportion of Australian organic foods are exported to Europe and Japan. While traditional niche farms continue to grow in numbers, the industrialization of organic production is kicking in with large cooperative farms producing in large scales while their products are still certified organic and a large proportion of the products of such farms go into the organic section of supermarkets. (Willer and Yussefi, 2006)
This emergence of large-scale organic farming had sparked debates on whether the cooperative organic farms should still be certified organic. Supporters would say the large scale of organic production helps with the problems of limited availability to demanding customers and relieve the premium price of organic foods and more importantly, take up more market share for organic foods. Opponents of large scale organic farming insist that this architecture undermines the sustainability and community development of organic foods, which are the silent and unregulated implementations of organic farming. (Lyons, 2001)

Difference of Organic Foods Comparing to Conventional Foods

Biology

Contrary to many beliefs, there is no biological difference when comparing conventional products to organic. The plants and animals function the same way despite the different approaches in planting/feeding because such differences do not affect the physiology of the plant/animal. For example, plants will take up nitrogen the same way (uptake from the root system as ions dissolved in water) no matter whether it was from manure or synthetic fertilizer, plants recognizes the ions not the source of the ion. Animals do not recognize whether their feed was from organic crops or not in the same way.

Health

There are suggestions that organic foods are healthier to consume than conventional foods, in the sense that organic foods are produced in a more natural way using natural supplies. In fact, as less chemical is applied to organic foods, they are healthier in the sense that less chemical residues would present in organic foods. At the same time, less application of chemical is likely to expose the crops to pest and microbial attacks, which may pose health risks on bio-toxins and infections.

Hygiene

As manure is used in organic production of crops, faecal contamination such as Salmonella and pathogenic E. coli could present a hazard in the product. Although the risk is low as the manure used has to go through disinfection treatments before application, the risk is still higher than conventional foods using fertilizers that are not manure-sourced. (Goldberg, 2000)

Natural Toxins

Preservatives, herbicides and pesticides are strictly limited for application in the production of organic foods. As a result the risk of natural toxins developed by fungi or other organisms growing on the plant may increase. However, under current study no evidence is supporting this claim.

Chemical Residual

As strict limitations are applied to the practise of organic farming, organic foods are expected to have less chemical residues comparing to conventional food product.
A study (Lu et al., 2006) had shown that organophosphorus, a widely used conventional pesticide level in the body dropped dramatically when changing the diet of elementary school children to organic foods. As for children, pesticide uptake of the body is mainly through diet, replacing conventional food with organic food which contains far less chemical residue cuts the main source of uptake of pesticides in children. This is one aspect that organic foods are better than conventional foods.
GM foods should also be mentioned here. With biotechnological engineering, pesticides could be replaced by introducing genes that expressed as pesticidal proteins in the plants, which kills the pest if it tries to attack the crop. This method literally reduces the need of application of pesticide to zero without risking the yield as in the case of organic products.

Taste/Nutrition

Supporters of organic foods always talk about how much better organic foods taste comparing to conventional foods. However, many blind tests had failed to differentiate the difference in taste between organic and conventional foods, (Goldberg, 2000) instead, it might be more of a psychological influence. Besides that, organic food producers do focus on improving the taste of their food produced (Clarke et al., 2008) in a bid to win over customers who do not believe in the cause of eating organic.
People tend to think that organic foods are more nutritious than conventional foods, through the implication of the term ‘organic food’ itself. Again, there is no evidence of better nutrition value for organic foods comparing to conventional to date. (Goldberg, 2000)
On the other hand, organic foods do have the potentials to be more tasty and nutritious than conventional foods when it comes to grocery shopping in the markets or supermarkets. As less preservative was approved for organic production, organic products are more subjective to spoilage and hence the shelf life would be reasonably shorter than conventional foods, which means they could be fresher when reaching consumers’ kitchens. Fresher food does mean tastier and more nutritious food, but that is not actually a benefit of organic food itself.
Environmental Impact
Supporters of organic food claim that organic farming has less impact on the environment because the application of toxic chemicals such as organophosphorus are prohibited in the practise, plus that no fossil oil based fertilizers are used so that greenhouse gas release could be significantly lower than conventional farming. However, increased cattle numbers to produce enough manure would also produce additional greenhouse gases. Burp of cattle is the main source of methane, a greenhouse gas far more effective than carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere. Methane is the second most contributing climate change driver after carbon dioxide at a far lower concentration (Forster et al., 2007), and it would eventually oxidize into carbon dioxide and water in the presence of oxygen.

Energy Efficiency

Energy efficiency is a great concern when it comes to farming with the rising cost of crude oil and other fossil sourced energy while any renewable energy alternative is not yet industrialized at a broad scale and at low cost, while the price of agricultural products continue to drop. For conventional farming, higher yield is assured by application of petrol-based fertilizers and pesticides and the heavy machinery to apply them. If a large scale organic farm is the same size as a conventional farm in the same area and they use the same sort of machinery the energy consumption for sowing, irrigation and harvesting should be the same. So it is only a question of whether the additional chemicals applied worth the increased yield in conventional farming, the Yield session of this article suggests that in this case organic farming could be more energy efficient. If the organic farm concerned is a niche style farm the energy consumption would almost definitely be higher.

Profitability

Yield

As modern technologies such as fertilizers, pesticides, advanced breeds are restricted to be used in organic farming, the yield of organic products is reasonably lower than conventional. It was the new technologies applied to farming that enables the planet to produce 300% as much of food on the same amount of land comparing to a century ago hiring far less people. (ERS, 2008) One study in 2002 had found that organically grown crops are around 20% lower in terms of yield with, with a 34-54% save on fertilizers and energy, 97% save on pesticides under current technology. (Maeder et al., 2002)

Pricing

The prices of organic foods are significantly higher than conventional foods. The causes of higher price include more labour employed per unit production, smaller farm sizes hence smaller buying power for supplies, slower growth of crops and animals without application of growth hormones during production, risk of pest damage due to limited pesticide application, shorter shelf life due to limited preservatives and a higher margin expected from the farmers who grow organic. There are some costs saved for organic products too, such as less chemical and less machinery used on organic farms than conventional farms.

Misleading Marketing?

GM is not Good HENCE Organic is?

In the first place, there had been no evidence so far supporting the view that GM foods are any less healthy or more damaging to the environment than conventional foods contrary to many fears, for the following reasons:
1. Consumption of foods does not mean changing the consumer’s genes, all of the nucleic acid chains are broken down and no longer represent any gene codes in the digestion system, where they are then absorbed as nucleic acids for the formation of new nucleic acid chains representing the genes of the consumer.
2. In some cases GM foods are modified crops that dedicatedly enhance the well-being of human, they can be more nutritious than conventional or organic food is the expression of a particular nutrient is added to the gene. The ‘golden rice’ is a perfect example, fortified with vitamin A planting in developing countries where severe deficiency of vitamin A causes blindness and even death as people in those countries do not have reliable source of vitamin A in their diet otherwise.
3. In terms of environmental impact, GM crops could be engineered so that they are pest-proof and more productive than conventional crops, which mean less chemical (fertilizers and pesticides) would be applied to the land and hence less harm is done to the environment. Tillage of the field is also minimized due to efficient weed management under the GM farming system, which maintains soil structure, traps greenhouse gases in the soil, avoids wind erosion and reserves nitrogen source in the field.
4. Ecologically, GM growers are trying to minimize the impact of GM crops in the ecosystem. There would be a certain size of ‘refuge’ land where crops are non-GM for GM crop production in case that resistance to the pesticidal proteins builds up in the pest population. The mechanism of how refuge works is if a few pests happened to be a mutation that could handle the pesticidal gene, when no refuge available the replication will be limited among these few pests as others die out and eventually the resistant gene would become common in the population; when there is a refuge around, the other pests could be fed on the refuge so that the resistant gene does not expand in the population while the crops are merely affected.
5. There had been studies and researches going on for 15 years before the first GM product is available to the consumers after its development, which is longer than any of the new drugs approved. (Goldberg, 2000) The researches are still going on and GM products are still refused by many of the governments fearing the ‘uncertainty’ of health and environmental issues of GM food.
6. Conventional breeding affects more genes in food than the genetic modification process; moreover, none of the currently used crop breeds appear naturally, they are all domesticated by human to make them suitable for consumption and with feasible yield. GM process is specific, acting only on the target gene/genes, while conventional breeding is completely blindness not knowing what is happening before the outcomes show. Some of the even severer processes of non-specific gene modification such as γ-irradiation are approved for the market, e.g. the yellow or orange capsicums widely available.
As mentioned in the previous sessions, organic foods are no more beneficial to human health than conventional foods in terms of nutritional value. On the food safety side, organic foods have less chemical residuals than conventional foods but might pose a higher risk on faecal contamination. However, GM foods seem to be a have-it-all product, not having problems with conventional foods nor organic foods. It is not responsible saying that GM food is not good and even less hence organic is good.

Feed the World

Land

With the yield expected from organic farming, it is not possible that organic food could feed the current population in the world, let alone the growth in the future. It was estimated that organic farming could at most feed 4 billion people on all arable lands available on the planet. In addition, cattle which produce manure require large amount of land to be fed on. (Leonard, 2006) The claims of most of the manure source currently present in the industry is not collected (Leonard, 2006) is not persuasive enough because arable land alone is not sufficient.

Developing countries

Producing organic is another sense of ‘feeding the world’ for developing countries producing organic products for export to the developed world, which produce economic benefits for the growers in those countries. Cuba is a perfect example, with the disbandment of the Soviet Union and the embargo by the United States this country lost supply of agricultural chemicals and was forced to produce organic because the supply of fossil based chemicals are cut. The country is now self-sufficient of food and exports citrus to the EU and the UK, making the country a major supplier of organic food. (Office of Global Analysis, 2008)

Rainforests

With the expansion of organic produce to developing countries who aim at exporting organic product for economic benefit, there is a risk that the people in these countries need more land for the production and start cultivation on rainforests, which is ecologically disastrous as this practise put many endangered species at even higher risk by ruining their habitat. (Leonard, 2006)

Farming Population

Supporters of organic foods claim that organic foods produced in small farms would be more productive than broad-acre farms in the sense that small farms practise crop rotation, plant multiple crops on the farmland in order to balance the soil, and have livestock on site providing manure as nitrogen source for the crops so that the total output of the farm on per-acre basis could get higher than broad-acre farms. (Leonard, 2006)
However, yield is not the only thing that industrialization of agriculture had brought to farmers. The farming population of developed countries dropped dramatically with the application of broad-acre farming, which frees more people into the second and third industry. The United States for example, 70-80% of the population was involved in agriculture in the year of 1870, while in 2008 only around 2-3% of the population was employed in agriculture. (ERS, 2008)
The drop of farming population is achieved by use of heavy machinery which replaces expensive human labour; single variety planted for a massive farmland to ensure the accessibility of machineries and the ease of management; fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and more productive breed of crops which increases the yield significantly while protecting the crop against pests and weeds. The application of new technologies in farming meant that less people working on the farm, while it feeds more people on less farmland.
Organic farming, on the other hand, if expanded by the means of number of niche farms, is destined to become a more labour-intense industry because the use of machinery on a small and mixed variety cropping land is limited under current technology, while the limitation of application of chemicals and conventionally bred higher yielding breeds of crops in order to be certified organic would not assure the yield of the land. This growth would draw more people who were freed by the industrialization of farming back to the farms to produce organic, in turn, less people would be available for the second and third industry.

Fertilizers

As synthetic fertilizers are not certified to be used in organic production, manure is the only source of fertilizers used in organic farming. However, the source of manure is limited because manure comes from livestock and livestock needs space and feed to survive and produce manure for organic farming. With limited arable land available and world population still growing fast, organic farming would not be able to keep up with the demand of the extra food for the extra population. It is estimated that organic farming would at most feed 4 billion people with all arable lands fully used, (Leonard, 2006) while the earth is already feeding more than 6 billion and expecting 10 billion by 2050. (Goldberg, 2000)

What Next?

Organic could remain as an alternative of lifestyle and remain luxurious, but saying organic is the future of agriculture and that all farms should adapt organic producing practise is not responsible because in the first place organic products are not able to feed the population on this planet. The industrialization of organic farming is also ruining the intimacy among foods, farmers and consumers which alienates organic foods from its initial attractiveness.
On the other hand, some people are switching from ‘eat organic’ to ‘eat local’ and they are no longer that concerned about being certified organic (Lyons, 2001), instead, they are more concerned of the freshness of their food and the benefit to their local community by consuming local products. The intimacy among foods, farmers and consumers are renewed.
GM food, being as environmentally friendly and healthy as organic food and higher yield than conventional food should be considered the future instead, while it just take time for people to be able to accept the idea that GM foods could be not harmful to either human health or the environment.

Conclusion

Organic food does have some benefits, such as environmentally friendly and energy efficient when practised on a large scale comparing to conventional production. However organic foods should not be advertised misleadingly as tastes better, more nutritious etc which are not true. Organic food is not the future of agriculture because it cannot even support the current population without the efficiency of conventional farming.
On the other hand, GM foods seem to be the future of agriculture as they are more energy efficient, environmentally friendly and just as healthy as organic food, the reputation of GM foods is poor at the moment because misleading claims by hate groups and the fear of the unknown of the people. However, GM foods are picking up paces in the recent years because they are beneficial to the growers by reducing management and assuring yields that growers are more than happy to accept.

Reference

CLARKE, N., CLOKE, P., BARNETT, C. & MALPASS, A. (2008) The spaces and ethics of organic food. Journal of Rural Studies, 24, 219-30.
ERS (2008) Population, Income, Education, and Employment. Fact Sheets: United States. Economic Research Service, USDA.
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Recently...

Well whenever I came to have used such titles it means that I'd been quite lazy and haven't been updating my dear blog for a while.

I am still alive. I have been noticing that this would be my 100th blog post so I've been thinking of something special, however, nothing like millennium special had come up these days and I've already been too far away from my last post so this is it, nothing special as most of the times.

Uni's been really busy with assignments, work books, reports and assignments. I was forced to try hard to do them, and they are not finished yet. When they do, there would be exams and stuff, then if I didn't do that badly, I'll be graduated. Don't ask me what after that, graduation is as far as I can see for the moment.

It seems this year is all about love, not mine though. Many of my close friends or casuals got attached, not to me of course. And that means, many of my backup plans are broken. On the other hand myself, I am getting old and way less popular than I used to be and should have been. And somehow, I don't appeal to be the boyfriend type of person, people dated me telling me that they are not looking for a boyfriend in the near future promptly attached to other guys leaving me very annoyed. I don't actually know what part of me is screaming I'm not a boyfriend type of guy, it's just no one thinks so.

I've been to Dookie for like many times, but none so stunningly beautiful as this time in spring. The canola field! I should have got some more pics of myself in the field! It was like heaven, or as one of my classmate states, classic Bollywood scene.

Got a sore throat last week and it still hurts a bit when swallowing. Be it Strepsils, antibiotic or what so ever, none working particularly well.

I don't know why but I've been reading my old blog posts while writing this, which makes the work long for me...

Happy 100th.

This is For Hong Kong

Well I capitalize substantive words on my title usually so the For here is a verb.

People in Hong Kong are currently requiring the right to vote for a government instead of accepting premiers from the Chinese government just like when it was a colonization of the UK. Beijing had promised to give the people in Hong Kong this right of voting before Hong Kong was handed back by the UK, but it had been deliberately pushing off the time of when this will actually happen. At first it was said that people will have the right to vote in 2007, then 2012, then 2017 and they are still pushing it off saying that 'no earlier than 2020'.

What is it that the government fear?

Well the independence of Hong Kong could be voted once its people were given the right to vote. That's obviously one thing. And why does it fear that? Because, China is simply not that good for places like Hong Kong to be willing to remain in, it is just not attractive enough anyway. A country of no freedom, but suppression. A country of no power, only bragger. I would vote for Hong Kong to be independent from China if I were to vote, for the sake of the people in Hong Kong. What good is it to remain in such white terror while you have the right of cutting the shit?

I was angry hearing that journalists of Hong Kong was treated completely unfairly while they were trying to cover the truth behind the recent cases of needle attacks in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomy District. The journalists were unlawfully arrested and even beaten up, and afterwards given the charge of 'interviewing with no journalist ID' while they kept trying to show their IDs during the offense. There were no apologies so far and when the press conference addressing this issue was held days later by the local government, the involved presses are not even invited and they lie shamelessly on their 'research' of the issue. Freedom of press is one of Hong Kong's core value and people of Hong Kong are no longer tolerant to the obvious ignorance of this value of the Chinese government.

Another thing is there are senators in Hong Kong representing the Pan-Democratic Parties are plotting on pressurizing the premier on addressing the voting rights and threatening with a major resignation of the parliament if the premier is not able to come up with a strategic and applicable plan of the realization of voting rights in Hong Kong. The major resignation could mean the dismissal of the parliament which needs to be re-elected or, a formation of a new parliament all together.

The only problem is, the Chinese government had settled an army in Hong Kong and more could be through the border within hours when needed, while the people of Hong Kong does not have an army of their own, it would have to rely on someone else if there would ever be a fight. (well I am quite sure if Hong Kong voted itself independent China will attack without hesitation) Who is out there for Hong Kong to rely on before it gets global attention (which, by then Hong Kong might've already been conquered completely)? Sadly, no one.

I Shouldn't Post a Blog at This Time

Simply because I'm already falling behind my assignments... However, I just don't wanna do it somehow... I'll try to keep it short though...

Had the most incredible night last night!! I knew it before I go that it had to be awesome though, with Ferry Corsten you'll never go wrong. Well they did send me an email prior probably to inform me the session times but there's nothing in the link, as a result I did not see the session times until I enter Palace Theatre on Bourke St. When I saw Ferry had a 4 hr set I from 1-5AM I was like WOW!! The performance was the best I've ever had live! He is a god, that simple.

Few issues with the event though, the management ones basically. First the security check for drugs, way too over the top. All the pockets are emptied and checked, I got my chewing gums and even lip balm thrown away... WTF that was a Clinique I spent 20 something bucks on and it was barely used! And sarcastically, despite such strict searches I could still spot people obviously on drugs and I've seen an arrest on drug dealers as well. Next and most importantly, there seems to be something wrong with the playback devices during the show and as far as I noticed only Ferry's set was affected. Disc skips was occasionally heard and it's a bit frustrating when you are letting it through such high power speakers. Ferry did apologize for that and he'd got the point, we made the party!! Last would be complains about the bar but it's actually not to be complained as they are all like that in such events. But paying the price for a full shot to get half a shot and a 250ml water for $4 is still ridiculous.

Well that's about it I'll see if I got the mood to study now... I promised to keep it short.

Mr Hello, Mr Beautiful and Ms Special Price

Well seems I've never talked about my work place in here... There are heaps of funny people in the market obviously but so far I've found these three quite spectacularly cute :)

Mr Hello's store is just opposite mine. A quite large souvenir store. When people are heading off the store thinking that the price is not acceptable he would always yell 'Hello' at them and then gesture them back and give them a better price, well some people tries to do the same trick pretending they are going on me obviously but I never give a shit and people who is actually acting would just come back and pay the price I asked. I rule in my store, customers don't. I don't like these sort of customers much, because I wasn't asking for a sky high price anyway. You either have it or leave it, that's it.

Mr Beautiful is cute old man selling coloured pens which change colours, he always wear a rainbow colour cardigan at work and his pens are actually quite interesting. 'Beautiful' is basically everything that he was asked opinions about. Weather, business, whatever. Just that sometimes he would add 'beautiful as shit'. He always have a huge crowd in the front of his store when he starts talking about his products, which actually scares the people nearby by literally magnetizing everyone to his store. 'Museum' was the funniest word I've heard referring to a quiet store from him that I couldn't stop laughing.

Ms Special Price is actually no longer active in the market although she comes back and visit occasionally. She used to be just next to me selling cell phone accessories and it'd been so irritating hearing her yelling 'special price' whenever any customers comes in all day. There was electricity in her store and she always plays things like 'I want it that way', eeeeekk. It seems that she's not at quite good relationship with her neighbours that when she goes people were like 'finally!!' Well I didn't have a problem with her though. Well the irritating thing now for me is actually the store selling toys at the front row, which has an ugly doll lying on her belly reading with legs swinging up the air, I never got to know what was she reading but the sound became so irritating that I almost throw up. I doubt they ever sold any of those dolls.

Weeks Without Ends

Well it seems my slack-trippy-skippy-slippy-whatever uni life has changed lately. I had been enjoying semesters after semesters of seemed-so-intensive-but-actually-slack timetables until this sem. Well 9AM Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays on the alloc8 does not seem so very bad, but when you do have a project in hand, even if the Monday lectures could be skipped or not quite intense, there would be days of extra work coming out of the blue. Today I have only one class on schedule which is a workshop that could not be skipped so I booked in the lab to do some of the work left over yesterday, I've booked a haircut for myself in the beginning of the week thinking that it might be the slackest day of my week. Well I actually made myself coming in the lab at 10AM and pouring those agar plates all the way to 1PM and then back again and continue that I was almost late for my haircut and left one job that the demonstrator assigned me unfinished to a friendly honours student. I was lucky the the tram waited for a few seconds for me to get on and I was like right on time for my haircut down in the city.

That's not all. i literally don't have any day off now as I have to get up early on Saturdays and Sundays for work, unless I were to skip all the lectures, which is 9 hrs on Monday, as on any other day there are non-lecture classes that I have to attend. Well there's one good thing though, I wasn't aware that it is week 4 now, one third of the semester GONE!! But the problem with this discovery was that, I haven't been doing much work at all, which means there might be harder weeks ahead... Deep sigh...

Well another thing that I made up my mind for was that i decided not to take any money from my savings account except my tuition fee from this point on. There wasn't much money left in there anyways :S I have to save up for my own living, struggle to repay my credit card and rent and bills and all sorts of stuff. I know I would be proud of it though when it comes towards the end if I kept my words.

I Haven't Forgotten You

Well no, I haven't forgotten this blog :) I'm still alive enough to update it, it's just that I am being slack when I am not busy... Well last semester seems to be quite different to me, the big project seems pretty scary... I've chosen to do a topic about minimal-processed food and hopefully it won't get too lame towards the end... And I know I'll have to refine it to more specific products rather than just say 'food'.

I haven't forgotten you, no. I still have your very small ID photo deep in my wallet although I've already changed quite a few of wallets to date. The photo's very worn now, but it's worth more than anything in my wallet, it is lucky that I haven't lost my wallet. My heart empties whenever looking at it and it hurts. I just can't manage to forget you, or I just don't want to. I knew I did the right thing on the morning of the day I moved house that I helped you build up your profile picture on WeeMee because you can't access the website back in China due to the internet censorship. I know it was something stupid to give up double-check of items time to help someone with some not-so-meaningful virtual profile picture, it's just that, that someone is you.

I haven't forgotten you, no. I have said I don't care, but I do. It stunned me when your initials appeared on one of those stupid quizzes showing 'who secretly loves you'... I can't judge the app but I can't stop thinking about it. I kept telling myself that we are meant to be missed out as we hadn't met in the right time. I was to ask you back on the last time that we chatted about someone that you asked whether was like 'very attached'.

I was content with people that do not love me, I was so preoccupied. That makes me so hard to have anyone outweighing them unless I could find someone who is strong enough to eliminate the memories of them from my soul. Covering them is easy and I did that successfully a few times, but when the cover goes they reappear more painfully. Only after another relationship will tell how important this person is to me. Those who kept reappearing in my mind, is granted permanent habitation in my soul.

But I don't have one in them.

Urban Caveman

Yeah that's me in my current situation... Moved to a new house in Fitzroy North like a week ago, while my housemate's yet to move in and he has all those appliances that we need, means I don't have a thing for the week... No fridge, no washing machine, no internet etc... Well my caveman life begins here then...

Day one. Thinking of cooking something home, went to the nearest supermarket, which is an IGA, very expensive although it does have many stuff that we don't see in Woolworths or Coles... There were two lightbulbs in my room, one obviously already broken, and the other was burnt while I try to switch it on... Got a friend over so I got some food and realizes I need cutlery... the ones sold in the supermarket was horrible so I bought some disposable ones instead... but still can't escape buying a bowl there, just simple and pure white, quite a large one. And it was after getting home that I realize I only have one saucepan and not enough for even cooking pasta, I managed to do that at last though, by tipping the boiled pasta into a microwave box and keeping it warm. Well the food was OK jus that we don't even have chairs to sit on for dinner... Well, I did not bad in changing the lightbulbs standing on my wheely chair and very weak drawers from Ikea...

Day two. Waking up finding that the room was actually pretty cold, although with all the windows closed I could feel breeze through my face. The window's facing east and the shade is not low enough that sunshine leaks right on my face early in the morning. Well, no more sleep in then... Went to uni to do a few stuff, changing my address of the bank account and university contacts, then went to the Italian wholesale near my old place in Brunswick for some grocery and cookware and stuff. Did found that the cutlery is better than wherever else to be found, all $2 each and most importantly, they are all one-of-a-kind, you could rarely find any two that is the same. Bought a chopping board but decided to leave the saucepan for the next time...

Day three was Saturday, worked from early in the day and did not have much things done, business was not too bad as far as I remember. Partied in Ben's place after work and got quite drunk and was actually surprised that I made my way home without a fuss.

Day four. Up at 4:30AM and can't get back to sleep, then just waited in bed for the alarm to come off at 6:30AM and prepared myself to work. I actually did ride a bike to work with a bit of a hangover and when I have to train a new guy, I thought I did OK though. Went to the laundry for a hell lot of dirty clothes to be washed and found that the stupid machines only accept $1 and 20c coins and there are no changing machines and stuff around. Well well well, went to the burger shop nearby instead and asked that nice looking waiter for some change while getting myself some dinner. Went back to the laundry and got it started then go back to the burger to pick it up and then had my small dinner there. After dinner the laundry was almost done, I waited for a while with a magazine in hand then took them all back and hung them at the backyard.

Day five. Went to Ikea and spend most of my day there. looking for a desk for myself. I scrabbled and scrabbled on the shopping list to try to make sure that a 2m long desk would fit in my room. While I still can't be sure I had to leave it alone so I went back with a chair and some other small stuff. After getting home I measured the room again and it definitely fits so I decided to get it somehow. Had to get someone to deliver it for me though I don't have a car.

Day six. Tuesday, stayed all day in bed. Did not even wanna get off the bed. Had to though, so I looked at the laundry at the backyard, and found some of them nicely blown down by the wind on the soil, never mind then. Just pick it up and hang it for bit more. Should be all good to have an undie that had kissed the soil once.

Day seven. Not much for the day but very much in the night. Stayed out all night and had quite a lot of fun out there. Best sex I've had for quite a while. Indeed. I don't know if I would have more of connections with that person, I do hope so and I got the answer as 'probably', I still can't be sure to date. I guess I wasn't really good at handling this anyway.

Day eight. My friend finally moved in along with his parents. And it was pretty nice to sort of have my urban cavemen life terminated. Although it was not until today that the internet of the house is finally connected, other appliances did come in earlier and well, it wasn't all that bad. Without the internet is the only occasion that I had to watch that three and a half hour long black and white movie 'Seven Samurai' back in the 1950s and enjoying such classic without a worry of anyone buzzing me on MSN. The lack of internet also gave me the inconvenience of not being able to download and print out the notes for the first week of the sem but it's only the first so things seems fine so far... Well I am back online now anyway so things are back to normal.

Progressive Democracy?

Hmm the term 'progressive democracy' that I am discussing here is different from the one described by Herbert Croly in 1915, although I haven't been studying that one. The one that I am discussing is what Chinese Author Wang Lixiong described in his book 'Progressive Democracy', which is said to be a system that would lead China into a smooth and safe transformation into a democratic society, although it would remain a theory until there are any sort of practise of this method somewhere in the society.

The principle of this progressive democracy is to consider all the 'cells' of the society, for example, families, and weave them together and erect them upwards to the top of the society, in this case, the country. Every family would have the right to elect one family representative, who interacts with other families' representatives within a small area such as a natural village in the countryside or one/several floor(s) in an apartment in the city. The principle of deciding the size of the area is that everyone has to know (or it would be easy to get to know) each other personally. After every one of the families in one such area has a representative, they form a representatives committee and a representative of the committee would be elected, whom would enter one step higher into the representative committee of say a governable village in the countryside or the whole building of the apartment in the city. A term 'layer' is adopted to describe the entirety of committees in a same grade, such as 'family' and 'natural village' in which 'natural village' is a layer one step higher than 'family'. These representatives create 'links' between the lower and higher layers, which are restricted themselves by the member of his/her lower level committee that they have the right to re-elect their representative at any time if they are not satisfied with their representative. Any single person is only allowed to be in two adjacent layers at most. The art of negotiation is what plays an important role here, that is, to have the aim for benefits that could represent the entirety of his/her lower committee, instead of his/her own benefits in order keep him/herself in the current place and not to be overthrown by the committee. This structure goes on and on, the governable villages in the same township would elect their representative for the town, and then the townships in the same county would elect the representative in the county... Until the layer of province representatives elect a representative of the country.

Every single person is involved in this system, and it is said that everyone's voice is heard because they make sure their representatives represent their benefits when it comes to any decision, or the representative will be overthrown. This is different from current democracy societies practiced in many countries in which peoples thoughts are abstracted to 'yes' or 'no' or 'A' or 'B', which eliminates many of the possibilities between 'yes' and 'no' or 'A' and 'B'. For example most Chinese would say 'no' when voting whether Taiwan should be separated from China, but many might change the idea if it cost their own benefits such as heavier tax in order to establish a competitive army and the requirements of themselves to attend the army and risk their own lives for this good.

Wang preferred to describe the the thought of a person to be a vector instead of a number, which has not only an amount but also a direction, the direction could be multi-dimensional and would have unlimited possibilities, unlike just 1 for 'yes' and -1 for 'no' in counting votes, of cause the absolute value of each vector is the same (let's say 1) in order to represent the equality among people. The sum of vectors follows the rule of parallelogram in maths, which would represent a dimension compromising all the thoughts and the amount of all the sums of the components of individual vectors on that direction. The representative of a committee is elected to represent this sum of vector among its members and deliver it up to the upper layer to perform another summing.

There are obvious benefits that Wang described in his theory of progressive democracy, such as that there is no need to restructure the current society, the only difference is that rights are delivered upwards from the mass instead of downwards from the leader. On the other hand, difficulties are obvious too. The practise of progressive democracy requires the knowledge of its principl of it in the entirety concerned, while this book is still banned from publishing in China, initiation of this practise is extremely difficult. Once the first layer is formed, people would disrespect the government-appointed leader of this layer and obey only the representative elected for the committee, which dysfuntionalizes the local government, and unless the higher grade of government accepts the new committee, they will be dysfunctionalized as well. The restructure of the governance system in China under progressive democracy will start from the bottom end and the new system will gradually grow upwards, which is more gentle than a sudden transformation to Western style democracy which breaks the whole system down before establishing a new one.

Well I do appreciate such a method that sees a better future of China. Thing is, no matter how carefully thought through this theory had been before it is published, it is until practiced that the flaws will show, Wang said the system will perfect itself, but we will have to see this in practice as well. Until then, it's only a theory, which no one would know for sure whether it works for modern China. We definitely hope so.

The Outback

OK where to start,we hopped on the Overland in Southern Cross station at 8:30-ish and the trip just rolled over. The train started sort of slowly (well, it'd never been real fast during the whole trip) in the suburbs but I soon started to struggle to recognize the names of the suburban train stations.
As soon as we got bored of taking photos of each other we are in Geelong, this city did not look nice from the train station but I loved it when I watched it from the top of hills down the coastline the first time I saw it years ago. This is actually only just the second time. The Overland then turned northwest towards the border of VIC and SA. We are in Bordertown not long after midday, which is already a few km's into South Australia. I realized that I forgot my cell phone charger back in Melbourne, which is far too late... I switched off the phone immediately though, tried to save the battery, I managed to get it working when I want during my whole trip.
Nothing much that exciting onboard but there is a German guy taking out his lunch which amazed us... He brought on toasts not spread with jams, peanut butter and Nuttella, but whole jars instead! Well, we stalked him for the whole time he spent on his lunch, although sometimes we would be distracted to the herds of sheep and horse and cows and stuff.
The most exciting thing in the afternoon would be that we saw the Murray for the first time. On the Murray Bridge. Really beautiful river, although whenever I press the shutter there would be an iron bar appearing at the centre of the picture which is quite disappointing, we did get a couple of reasonable shots of the river. I would consider the Murray definitely worth a visit, in depth. We arrived Adelaide at dusk and just in time for my friend Will to pick me up in the station. I haven't seen him for two years now...

Adelaide is a big town instead of a city, as many people had told me. A pretty nice and quiet one though not to my surprise. Will drove us around after dinner and I could feel that it'd not been long after I realize we are going pass the same places over and over again. The next day was basically Glenelg, the beach. As our onwards travel of the Ghan set out at midday, we didn't see much of Adelaide in the daylight at all.

The Ghan is not quite a pleasant to travel on with a seat, but that's all we could afford.
Beautiful scene along the way though. with the introduction to the towns we passed, and impressive country style scenes until sunset when we reach Port Augusta, the 'crossroad of Australia' and once almost chosen the capital of Australia. Just off the station we stopped aside a sort of tree-lined road, still, for more than an hour for some reason, and when we set out again, it was all dark. I was amazed we still made it on time to Alice Springs.
We had our dinner in the diner that evening, not as bad as I'd imagined luckily. What actually annoyed us was that there are kids onboard kept faking their cries, without a proper reason even after the light's dimmed for sleep, the seat is not anywhere close to comfy for sleeping, I struggled quite a bit to fall asleep and I didn't get much of sleep at all that night.
I slept pretty poorly and started realizing the very first light out the window, the view has definitely changed, with some sort of grass and rock-like stuff (which later proved to be yet another kind of weird vegetation with more light) moving quickly past the window in the twilight.
We are in the outback.
I pictured the whole process of the sunrise although it was not quite impressive with my digital compact camera with so little light available. When the day brighten itself up, the sort of savannah view amazed us. We were imagining nothing but desert on this land, but well, the arid vegetation still exist and they did adapted themselves up to this sort of impossible environment. The SA-NT border was not far after dawn, which is no more than a weird sign.
I picked up a Latte in the diner which is tasteless while Shandi's still asleep. We crossed Finke river just before approaching Alice Springs, the so-called river is just a sand bed, no water at all, the riverbed is actually sandier than anywhere else in sight. When arriving in Alice springs at around 1pm, we are all shattered with hurtful bones...

Adelaide would have been a metropolis if it were comparing to Alice Springs, but anyway I was here for the outback instead of the skyline. It is obviously a quiet small town brought up almost solely by tourism. We were too tired to wander around it yet after the night on the train that we head straight to the inn we were staying, picking up some junk food from McDonald's on the way.
We decided to find something fancy for dinner that night in Alice Springs, and we picked a restaurant randomly from the local tourists' handbook we got from the information centre. Well the dinner was not cheap, but we waited for 45 minutes before we got any food after ordering, and I decided not to tip.
On the way back there was a few aboriginal people wandering around the street but we just kept going until we are back in the room.

The following day was supposed to be a relaxing one. And it is, probably more relaxing than I've planned before. I woke up around 10AM and went around the main streets of the town scouting, confirming our tour the next morning in the shop where I got the first non-mobile internet access in a few days.
Going back to the inn Shandi's still sleeping. We finally set off on the streets and I finally lost my virginity on Red Rooster, although I've went past it quite a few times and wondered if I should go in. Well I actually appreciate the fillets there, way better than the ones sold in KFC I have to say.
After brunch we went out wandering around the streets in town again, visiting all those gallery/art store of the aboriginals we could. I wasn't quite interested in the Royal Flying Doctor thing and the Reptile Museum, but rather the old telegraph station, but when Shandi heard that it was a 40 mins walk away she just refused to go... We went to Woolworth's for some snack and water that we were supposed to bring with us the next day on the tour. In the evening, junk food in KFC, not impressive hey, we've had all the junk food we could in town, except Hungry Jack's which is too far away in the highway.

The next morning we had to wake up at 5AM, we've been waiting at the gate of the inn for like 40mins before the bus arrived and picked us up. Well this is probably the only dissatisfying thing happened during the next 3 days of our tour.
The tour guide/driver Hayley had always been an energetic girl and whenever she speaks she start with 'Wee~' or some sort of opera, cute. Well anyway with her guide our 3-day tour'd been a really exciting and fun one.
Well I'm obviously not suppose to remember everyone elses' names, even if I do I wasn't keen to list. Just see them pop out later.

Day 1 was to visit the King's Canyon, which is 5 hr drive away from Alice Springs. Had a pretty light lunch on the tour bus and we are ready to climb that thing! The first part of the tour was called 'heart-attack hill', which is quite physically demanding with intense and steep uphills. It wasn't very hard for me at all so I was among the first 5 to reach the top of the hill in our group. Shandi barely made it and headed back later for the easy walk, shame.
The canyon was in sort of a surreal atmosphere, with sedimental domes and wicked vegetations along the way. It'd been really hard to capture the depth of the canyon with a camera standing atop, that you will have to experience it. Very dangerous to get close to the edge though as Hayley says, the canyon itself was formed by all those sediments chipping and falling. I got to know a pretty nice guy called Andy from Germany in our group during the climb and found ourselves going on pretty well.
After the climb up such a wonder we headed off to the campsite close to Curtin Springs, Along which we went into a bush to get firewoods for the night. We got quite a few of them that Hayley started to call us 'greedy'. The fire that night was nice and warm and we actually saved our time collecting firewoods the next day as the woods we collected lasted that long.

Day 2 was Kata Tjuta, this is the mot magical day of our tour, although we paid for it. We didn't suppose we would catch a rain shower here, not even a shower, I would rather call it drizzle. Kata Tjuta is so much different from whatever postcards it had appeared on. It is the rain that made this tour so much different. Streams of water started to run out of the holes on the domes and the whole scenery started to look like Lijiang in Guangxi back in China where the mountains and water was considered the best in such drizzles. The price for the rain is, well, my postcards and stamps got all soaked although there wasn't much of them at all... My only jacket brought out for the tour was also soaked, as well as my tee changed in the morning. I was surprised that my MiniDisc player was not affected although it was also wet and I didn't realize that until I am on the flight back Melbourne days after.
Luckily the sun's out after lunch, when we were supposed to visit the cultural centre of the aboriginals where we were introduced to their world...

***
Well sort of my own opinion towards the aboriginals in central Australia, they are mostly polite and nice as far as I see, although they smell funny. They don't actually do harm unless threatened. But there is something about there religions which practice strict gender segregation such as men and women must use different tools and there are sacred areas which if owned by men, women must not see. Heavy penalties would be applied if such rules are broken, including blinding the offender's eye etc. They say they never climb Uluru but there're actually paintings left all over the rock since the ancient times and they actually admit that it was their ancestors who did the paintings. There are places on Uluru where photographing is prohibited and penalized while although they were not happy they still allow climbing of the rock when the condition allows, which might seem a more severe insult to the rock than photographing, suggested Andy. This might sound ridiculous towards the general public, but still, we are to appreciate and applause for the difference as we could.
***

I sort of rushed my visit in the cultural centre actually as the sun's out, and headed outside to get my jacket sundried, it did not long after. And I am pretty happy with that.
The sun was hidden again when we arrive the sunset deck for Uluru for a bit of fun, the rain started to fall again but just when we were bit disappointed the most amazing thing appears - rainbows beyond Uluru, not one, but TWO! We were all amazed by this and we just can't help taking heaps of photos of this wonderful trio. My lens was not wide enough to get the whole of them though it was already a 28mm.
We spent the evening in the camp area in the national park, where we shared some alcohol and stuff, and when it gets late we started asking each other those wicked questions which no one's gonna solve. Well I've only got some easy ones though.
The dew soaked the outside of our swags the next morning when we were heading to the sunrise, and Andy told me I was snoring loudly the night before...

So the last day was all about Uluru, the sunrise and then the base walk. The weather was pretty pleasing that they actually allow climbing of Uluru, most of us chose not to though in the respectation of the customs of the aboriginals.
The base walk was generally calm and even uneventful. with many places marked as sacred sites which were not to be photographed. I was still regretting that I couldn't take a photo of a wicked face like cave on the rock, as it was a sacred site. Uluru showed us the other side of it, far from the impression we've all got from those postcards, and far from just a rock, you'll totally have to see it to know what I meant here.
The trip was getting to an end after the walk and we drove back to Alice Springs. I attended the dinner with some of the mates I met in the tour and Hayley, the food and beer was both amazing, we went to Ryan's house after that for his birthday the next day. What a night!

The day after we wandered around Alice Springs again and were really depressed to have found out that the beanie festival was too far for us to attend as our flight would leave pretty soon... And there was a shop in Todd Mall selling all those wicked beanies and displaying the winners of the years before, it was really sad that they are not for sale but we took a few pictures in them anyway so that we would regret less.

Tiger Airlines was pretty stingy and greedy that they are probably the only airline that actually weight your hand luggage, but it does its job anyway, so we arrived Melbourne quite a bit earlier than expected. The kid sitting next to me showed me some wicked scenes from the Incredibles with his portable DVD player, although I don't actually have the sound they seem pretty funny. We made the right decision in the airport to have used a cab instead of bus as it was proved cheaper and way faster, which doesn't actually need to be proved.

Another Blog?

I am actually considering opening another blog, which will be in Chinese. BUT, this new blog is probably pure political and anti-China. I don't actually think that I have such a brave heart or anything like that to be attacking my shamefully 'own' country while I am still practically its citizen. What I have in hand is my own conscience to fight against those brain-washing state-run media and education within the country and the brain-washed pitiful youths turning a blind eye to all the facts, believing only in the lies that they were told by the government. I wasn't actually willing to do this, their minds have virtually nothing to do with myself except that I might recognize and get annoyed on the internet their ignorant and shameless comments about almost anything.

College students in China are educated as if never, both academic and lifestyle wise. Plagiarism is the basic form of assignments all the way up to master degrees, and probably even some of the doctorial degrees. Not cheating in the exams is rare. For those arts degrees involving history, politics or philosophy, the government's voice is the only one. Don't get surprised if you ever read Marxism as a compulsory subject for mechanical engineering students in any of the universities in China. While the intakes of universities are increasing every year, the already underpaid graduates are placed in even harder situation in terms of finding a job. Reverse-elimination is the rule of the society that hypocrites get promoted while the real hardworking people never would have a chance until they learn the art of hypocrisy and bribing. Scums take the leadership of the country.

If I did open such a blog I might have to reduce the frequency of update in this blog, which I currently set to myself as at least once per ten days on average by the month. Or actually, I should just write all I wish to in English although mine's not the perfect so that I am letting English speaking people know more about what China is like in the fact. Yes I do have access to more facts than most Chinese people as I am out of the government census of the internet in China.

What Am I?

I often wondered. What am I to have been such a devil, hypocrite and slut? I love to do things that insult myself and then going back of them to insult myself again, such as writing about them right here right now. I always do something inappropriate in the wrong time and wrong place that force people to have fake impression of myself, and when I realizes that and wished to correct it always get worse until the exact point of the collapse of friendship, relationship or whatever. I fall into any random person's embrace, without thinking of what impression would I get from my loved ones. Yes they don't love me, but I am making every effort to image myself worse to them and then hoping like an idiot that one day they will turn to me. How ridiculous!

I am actually camming someone at this time, you were pretty drunk at 4AM and horny before going to bed. Saying that you 'lied' when requesting me to show face only and is now asking me to take everything off. doesn't have a cam yourself though and I've already shown you this time last week while he was drunk just like today. Well I did it again anyway... Hoping that I won't be that stupid next week to have answered you in facebook. Yes I do feel shame for myself doing that to someone I've never met in person, let alone having any feelings. That person's still only a few pictures and some flirty words, not much more than that if there's any at all to me.

About telling the truth, I wasn't aware so far what should I actually tell and use white lies or other truths to cover truths that I don't wanna tell, making the impression that I've never lied. This is probably a classic hypocrite trick but as far as I know most people does that, whether they do aware or not. Well what was real amazing was that I am able to tell a truth which sounds like I'm telling a lie without awaring what would that statement affect the person I was talking to, especially the ones that should be covered by other truths.

I don't know if people talk to themselves like me when no one's noticing. I would talk to myself while I was walking alone on the streets or something like that, I talk to myself about everything, the things I see on the streets, where am I going, even gossips and speculations about people. I would be extremely embarrassed while caught doing that, I myself, on the other hand, never caught anyone doing that so I supposed this might have been the problem with my own self.

Love, what a word! I don't know if I am still believing in it. I'll have to have a reason to do that, and I've already got a few reasons like that and believed, and when the reason's gone my belief's gone. And I started to doubt what should I actually do when facing another reason, if believing is always finally turning out doomed, why should I still believe? Yes there are examples around us, but who knows if it was the bubbles just last long enough for a lifetime, given more, it will still break into those powdery droplets? Well, wishing for a bubble like that sounds like a choice, but it is none the less a bubble, not the so-called eternal love.

My heart? Astrology would suggest that Cancers would always put someone they used to love deep in their heart, which is why they will shed a tear passing by the long bench they dated 30 years ago. This is partially true to me. The ones I used to have loved, I mean with my life, seems to always occupy a corner of my heart, while thinking of them I could easily get moved. But none of these people had actually have a relationship with me. Those who have, I actually know from the start that they are not what I want, I go ahead for various reasons, whatever it is, after the relationship goes to an end, they would always be replaced by new ones. I just haven't met anyone whom I had a relationship with that I loved with my life, or if I were to show my positivity towards life, not yet.

Ups and Downs

Haven't been feeling this way for quite a long time now, and there's too much happening these days... Don't even know where to start...

Sad things first then. I thought I did not bad, really, although I wasn't looking at the highest grades, I mean, at least I don't deserve a fail for that exam. I did study, I did those sample questions, I did attend the revision session, I did think I know how to answer those questions and I did have enough time for them as I was actually the first to have handed in the paper. The results of that exam have been delaying and I haven't been panicking because I thought I did OK. And now at the end of the semester I got my result as failed and was told that there's a hurdle on that (so I practically failed the subject but only if I did well in the finals I stand a chance for a supplementary or probably a straight pass (which is implicated by the lecturer but obviously not the sense of hurdle))? I can't imagine that.

And the second one is barely my own stupidity. I was attending a ferry party and was required to dress formal, so that I went shopping for a jacket or something after work on Saturday. Well I was planning to get something warmer before that as well. What did I finally get? A pretty slim fit long Brooklyn, not warm and not quite formal... It was nice to be worn in that party, but it wasn't of much more uses, I can't even cycle in it. And I've thrown $299 on this thing which is definitely not worth itafter I realized I was paying retail for a beautiful crap. Yes it does look nice, just not worth it. And the sales terms in Politix was fucked up that they don't accept my return addressing that I've worn it... Well I was thinking of selling it on eBay for say $200 or just keep it to myself... I still do want a warmer jacket and a more formal stuff though, as my graduation's approaching that I might have to start hunting for jobs.

Yeah mentioning jobs, I was surprised to have seen that the Australian economy has escaped recession by increasing 0.4% of GDP in the first quarter of 2009, that was not necessarily a good thing for me honestly. A delayed recession? that means I'll be in a worse situation when I graduate by the end of the year. Otherwise if Australia is actually in a healthy growing and barely dipped into recession it'll probably be better for me. So I would say we'll have to wait for the report of the second quarter to decide.

OK some good news, probably not news anymore. I've already booked everything for our trip to Uluru so it is now all confirmed. Will be departing 20th of June, early in the morning on the Overland, and arrive in Adelaide in late afternoon. There will be an overnight stay in Adelaide but I don't think we could see much at all. The next day we'll be on the Ghan by midday and head for Alice Springs. If we were lucky we'll definitely go for the whistle tours on the way. Arriving in Alice Springs the next afternoon, and we will go around the small desert town for a relaxing day the day after I think. And on 24th we'll be up early again for the camping trip to Uluru for three days, which I'm sure they will arrange well for us. Back to Alice Springs on 26th and stay overnight again then flight back to Melbourne the next afternoon, hopefully in time for the course dinner in Docklands with classmates?

The place I've just moved into was a pretty large house, with two homestays (a boy and a girl) and me as a tenant, plus the landlady and her parents, such a big family... The house was pretty nice I have to say, and rent is acceptible. The only thing would be that a friend of mine is asking me to take a house with him, which means I'll have to move soon if that was the case :S It waas until this moving time that I realized how much stuff I've actually got with me all these two years living in that shabby flat! I still haven't unpacked my Wii after moving to this house for 5 days, maybe I'm getting over it? Who knows.

I should be studying for today but I spent much of the time typing all these stupid stuff... I have sinned!

Settling...

It's been such a busy, furious and frustrating period for me, and it seems this period is coming to an end. The period of looking for houses everywhere, rushing through assignments, not having enough sleep every single day and working not-there is coming to an end. I've finally got a new home in Coburg, which is a bit far from the uni than my current place, but still seems a pretty nice one to live in. I've handed in all the assignments and hopefully did not too bad. I'll have a presentation later today and a concert tonight, then move tmr. I've already started packing my stuff for moving and I will move on Friday. Work on weekends as usual and then a big birthday party of a friend on Sunday night. I will still have to find something 'formal' to dress for that party which I don't know what to...

Well it's still pretty busy a week for me but I hope it will get better soon... And the exam's coming as well... But I'll at least have several days of relaxing first I guess, to insist on my laid-back or slack if you like type of lifestyle.

House Hunting

In one word, PAINFUL.

I'm not taking a whole house or signing a contract for a whole year obviously, so I'm not going to agents. What's left? Internet. Tried many of the sites so far... Really struggling to find a good place... Almost got some of them and then suddenly they are gone (sometimes it's my fault though)...

And I got heaps of scams as well... many people 'happened to have' a very nice house in a great place leasing at an incredibly low price, and they 'happened not to' be in Melbourne 'on a project' or stuff like that and asks you to send your bond overseas then they promise they will send you the key. They 'know' that this is hard and they understand 'trust' is very important between the 'two of us'. I noticed that most of the scams are written in a same manner, and are even using the same words and similar sentences, all that was different was their name and address. It was this kind of similarity that alerted me...

Well anyway, just wish me luck...

ACN?

Well went to an introduction to that thing on Tuesday, where one of my high school mates that I met coincidentally in Melbourne a year before took me. Well that introduction is obviously made tempting and welcoming to newbies like me, but I was calm through it. I don't understand the need of standing up applause for someone who made big money out of yourself, what's the point? And yes I do believe some people did made big money from this business, simply by keep encouraging people to join the team, and tell them how to ask people to join their team, making it terribly big and make a lot of money from it. It seems easy as many of such people showed themselves up in the introduction, thing is, the ones who failed in this didn't show up, and the 'successful' people's huge earnings are based more or less on them.

Pyramid scam? Probably. $500 to have you started, plus you are encouraged to becoming a customer of ACN's mobile and probably internet or land line yourself as a start, which costs money too. I've read here that US representatives have to pay annual installments on top of the fees of joining, They did not mention a single word of this to me either in the introduction or after that in the 'persuasion' event. I don't know if this fee exists in Australia but obviously they wouldn't want you to know prior even if it does.


As the 'persuasion' goes late they started to become aggressive and started pushing me. A girl who joined the team for a month told me that she quit 2 of her part time jobs earning her like $1000 per week for this thing. I immediately got cautious at this: OK you are a year 2 commerce student in our uni, I know that commerce is an easy course but our uni would not get too easy on you as any other courses. As I am soon graduating what I was looking at was around $40k per year which is about average salary for a new graduate and I know how much time do I have while I was in year 2 even if my study is obviously busier than commerce. You are still studying and the part time jobs you quit got you more money than a full time one I was looking for? There are possibilities of course (which I'm not willing to mention). Maybe I should not doubt if ACN had got you more than that in a month, I would not believe the the part time jobs you described earn you that much even if you are telling the truth. I simply don't believe.

I don't actually mind being ACN's customer just to try it though, as my contract with 3 is over. I signed a month-to-month plan with them and they are using Optus network which I was to switch to, well it doesn't hurt right? I could cancel it if I am not satisfied. And when I started to sign those stuff my high school mate told me I am her first customer besides herself, and she's been in for two weeks. OK, back to that one-month girl, how much could you actually earn? She's got a pin saying ETT, which is the first achievement you could get in system, the requirements? 5 customer points and two down-lines. I doubt this would even get her $50 per month. She would wear the ETL (next level) pin if she did achieve that right?

I would see though. I will have to know whether they are selling genuine good products like Amway did, and I'll then consider making money out of it, with my own belief on the product. I did not tell anyone about this company yet, time will tell.

New One

I've actually been bit of regret purchasing this monster, but I did and there's no turning back anyway. It was in a two day sale with $150 off plus free speakers (I will sell the speakers as I've already got way better ones and hopefully get another $100 out of that)

Looking back I do think I did the right thing in terms of the price I got it for. The Studio XPS 435 which is just out is from over $2000 and with worse components, just better expandability and less noisy, with way larger chassis as well.

I've seen that many comment on this one that it's bit noisy, so I expected that and it's true. It is noisy but not that bad that you would throw it away. The expandability of it actually surprised me. The sales from Dell told me in the online chat that there would be only one PCI slot free so I was like 'well, I will not get a PCI WiFi card then, get a USB one instead and leave it for say a better sound card' and I did. But when I opened the chassis when it arrives, It actually come with 3 free PCI-Express x1 slots, well I only need one for a sound card anyway, probably a Creative X-Fi Extreme Music. Lucky I didn't get a PCI WiFi card prior cos that one doesn't actually fit in PCI-Express x1 slots...

There had been some frustration with the software side of this thing. The dardisk wasn't partitioned properly out of the factory, so I obviously have to divide it again and I actually had to hide the recovery partition myself! And after that I had to reinstall Windows, there are problems with the bluetooth thing comes with it, which I can't manage to install a so-called 'bluetooth peripheral', however it does not affect the bluetooth communication among my phone, my desktop and laptop so I just leave that alone. The Windows Vista 64-bit is bit weird, especially when it comes to media playing. I'll have to try to work this out some time. Or I'm actually considering Linux, I was to switch to Linux for my laptop but now I started to consider maybe this one is the thing that I should switch. The only thing worried me was the compatibility of the hardwares and stuff, I won't start until I got them relatively clear.

The power system is another concern of this desktop to me. It is probably more of a living room computer than a workplace one, I can't imagine my computer has lights on when it's not turned on but it has. The light itself is not a big issue, I could just turn the power supply off, but as most of my appliance is on the same surge protector I still want my phone charger on!

Hmm for the customized build part, I basically only chose the basic parts for it, although it's already more than appealing. The core components are Intel Core i7 920, X58+ICH10, 3G DDR3 1066MHz, 500G HDD, ATI Radeon 4850HD 512M. It is obviously not worth it to spend almost $1000 to upgrade to i7 940 as there's nothing much more than a 133MHz higher clock speed which I think I actually could overclock my CPU to if I want it cos the basics such as number of cores and amount of caches are absolutely the same, while the RAM and HDD could be added by myself easily later. It was said that a RAID series would match better with the performance of the system than a single hardisk, I guess so when it becomes the bottle neck of the system, with all those hi-end CPUs and graphic cards. I would actually prefer a graphic card by nVidia but it didn't provide me with a choice...

Well that's about it, my new computer. I've yet to try it on one of those hard core games but I'm definitely eager to get my hands on Diable III whenever it comes out, and I'm ready with this thing hopefully.

A Worse than Nothing Holiday?

5 reports, 1 assignment and then 2 exams after the Easter break, WTF? It's supposed to be EASTER!! Wait is Easter about the break or the suffering? I am no Christian so it is all about the break for me obviously, I should be able to demand it and the piled-up homework is all that I get.

Now, the 3rd day in 10 is almost gone, what have I done towards those? None. I've been enjoying MY days off uni so far. Which would turn into greater suffer close to the due days of the homework and exams...

Anyway, I'm going to bed and call this a day, the 3rd of 10 days' break.