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A whole new book…
In just 36 hours, Maria and I leave Norway... Having spent about one year here, we have decided to return to Australia and Brisbane again!
This time, the adventure simply involves getting back to Brisbane in one piece each. Or in Maria's case, two pieces... She's carrying with her our yet-to-be-born son!
There may well be more posts on koalaplanet.org over the next few days, weeks and months!
Stay tuned and stay in touch! :o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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A new chapter
In just 12 hours, Maria and I leave Australia... We're not leaving for good, but we're planning a few years in Norway and other places around the world!
We're kicking off our adventure with six weeks in Japan before arriving in Norway around 19 March to settle there.
There may not be many more posts to Koalaplanet in the future, but we'll keep everyone updated in a new weblog - to be announced!
Thanks to those of you who have been following Koalaplanet through the years... It's been fun, and we'll be back! :o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Great Ocean Road
After a few days in lovely Melbourne, we hired a car and drove the Great Ocean Road, staying two nights in Apollo Bay.
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Melbourne revisited
Maria and I took my parents to Melbourne to show them a different side of Australia... Here are the photos!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Trip to Brisbane Forest Park
My parents are visiting at the moment. The other day we went for a 5km walk in Brisbane Forest Park in the Mount Nebo/The Gap area.
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Maria’s graduation
Maria graduated from uni last Wednesday... Now she's officially a mechanical engineer!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Presenting… Mr Cat
Here are some shots of our little cat when he was really small and fluffy!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Daily life - February
A few shots of nothing in particular... Will be updated occasionally!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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See our Japan photos
As mentioned, Maria and I went to Japan a few weeks ago... We've put our best photos up on Picasa. Check them out!
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Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Another day in Tokyo
Another day has passed with us roaming around Tokyo... Sadly, just one full day (plus one morning) left of our Japan stay!
We met up with Hiro - Maria's pen friend - at Tsukuji Fish Market in the wee hours of the morning. A sizeable portion of all the seafood sold in Japan passes by this place, so as you can imagine... It was fairly busy!
It's probably the most dangerous place I've ever been in my life! (And I've been to Mexico City!) With motorized fish trolleys zipping through the really narrow walkways at breakneck speed carrying fresh tuna worth tens of thousands of dollars; hundreds and hundreds of people running around in all directions pulling carts with more fish; frozen nitrogen blocks dabbed on top of stacks of even more seafood; and tourists and buyers sliding around on the wet, slimey, fish-bloody floor... Yea, definitely interesting! :o)
After surviving about two hours in the fish market, we decided not to push our luck any further. We headed over to Tokyo University for a quick walk around campus there, and then continued on to BIC Camera to replace my camera lens. (The original one had a nervous breakdown after attending a wedding one day and a six-hour bus tour of most of Kyoto's temples the next.)
A lens and an iPod later, we headed off to the World Trade Centre Building for some bird's-eye views of Tokyo.
Having confirmed my new lens worked fine, we turned our attention to Shibuya for a walk through the deli section of Tokyu department store, and ended up having shabu shabu at an obscure but really great little restaurant somewhere about 20 meters below street level.
We wrapped the evening up with a visit to a manga store and some guitar playing in our hotel room!
Japan rocks! :D
(Oh dear... I'm starting to sound like Maria now!) 
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Hi from Japan
Hi everyone! Just a quick hello from Tokyo, Japan...
Maria and I are on our way to Norway to celebrate Christmas. But on the way we are having a week's break in Japan...
We are currently on day five of our eight-day stay here and we've had a ball so far!
Day one was spent roaming around Tokyo... We covered Harajuku - with Maria stocking up on a sorely needed winter coat and some shoes... She even managed to get a haircut. Dropped by the electronics district too - Akihabara - and had dinner at a very well hidden little restaurant in Shirokane-Takanawa (awesome food).
Day two saw us on the Shinkansen to Osaka to attend our friend Eri's wedding. Absolutely pooped by all the stress leading up to departure from Australia as well as a long and exciting yesterday, we slept most of the way there and spent the evening in the hotel.
The next day we explored the Osaka Business Park area and Osaka Castle. In the evening Eri got married in a really beautiful wedding ceremony. The ceremony and reception went down with style and accuracy as only the Japanese can do. Perfect! And both Eri's family and her husband's family were really great to us and received us with open arms in the middle of their kids getting married!
Day four we ended up on a totally unplanned marathon bus-sightseeing-trip around Kyoto with Eri, her husband Kai-san and his family. We got to spend the day with Eri - which was great as we haven't seen her for almost two years - and managed to see four temple complexes in just a few hours. Got dropped at the hotel in the afternoon and called it a night.
Day five - today - we took the Shinkansen back to Tokyo, had a walk around the music district in Ochanomizu, bought Maria a cheap but nice travel guitar and headed back to the hotel. I also had a walk around Akihabara, hunting for MP3 players - but didn't have much luck... Will try again tomorrow! :o)
All in all, we're having an absolutely great time here... It's so good being here in Japan!!! Love it!!!
That concludes my five minutes for now... Nighty nighty from Tokyo! :o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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...and in other news
The last serious update to this page was back in May - about half-a-year ago... A pretty ridiculous track record! :o)
I won't promise more frequent updates, but hey... One can always try!
Just to briefly recap the past six months...
I got a new/better job in QR, and Maria and I have bought a house, a dog, a car and a cat. (In that order!) We're both studying full-time and are in the middle of exams right now. We finally nailed the plans for a trip to Norway - having changed our minds/cancelled twice - my mum turned forty-ten and my grandpa 85, and soon Maria and I have been married for two years.
Not much more to say really... We're keeping far too busy at the moment - but in the blur of time flying by, those would be the things that stand out to me.
Anyways... Back to exam study! :o)
Nighty!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Travel plans and exams…
It's exam time again and it turns out exam periods are the times I'm best at updating this page... Probably has to do with how I really don't like the course I'm studying for at the moment... But that's a different story!
Maria and I are going to visit family and friends in Norway for Christmas! But not before spending a week in Japan on the way there.
We leave Australia on December 13, and will stay in Japan until 21 December. Hopefully, we'll get to see a fair few interesting places around Tokyo. We're also hoping to spend a few days in Kyoto - because rumour has it Kyoto is an absolute must-see.
From Japan we'll fly straight to Kristiansand on 21 December - back to good-old sub-zero temperatures, rain, slush, snow, darkness, family and friends! Really looking forward to seeing everyone again!
We'll be in Norway until 8 January - just enough time to gain the prescribed five kilos any self-respecting Norwegian will pile on during that time of the year, see family/friends, have a couple of nights in the mountains and relax a little.
To family and (long-lost) friends... Hope to see you in Kristiansand around Christmas! :o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Internettilkobling in Australia
We Norwegians am accustom along with comparatively approve internettilkoblinger. I've browsed a bit at Telstra and Optus her internettabonnementer. To have said facts immediate. Australia aren't country there you getting råbillig domestic. Australias telenett lie a few year after Norway about development and ( perhaps also ) capacity . This result in high charges and monthly limitations at nedlasting at combining.
Gotta love translation software... Somebody was apparently interested in an article I wrote years ago about internet subscriptions in Australia. Problem was, they didn't quite understand Norwegian! Here's the result.
Must yes say, self about the translation is a bit on the field, they understood the point... "Ppl in Australia with broadband are crackpots!" :p
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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New photoblog
A couple of years ago I was utterly snap happy, running around with my camera and taking photos everywhere I went... But for the last year or so, I've hardly touched my camera!
Of course, this can't be allowed to go on! So to motivate me to get back into photography, I've set up a little photoblog... I'll do my best to post a new photo there every day, which means I better get snapping again!
Have a look, it's right here (or on the top-right of the koalaplanet.org frontpage)! :o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Taking over the railroads
Our friend Marc just got a job with Queensland Rail as a rotational engineer... Congratulations to him!
With this, both Marc and I will be working full-time in QR - in the same building, even! And what's more, Maria will more than likely be working part-time with QR as well for the next couple of years! So that means both Maria and I, and our best friend Marc will be wreaking havoc there on a regular basis.
Our evil plan to take control of Australia's railroad system is mov... Oh dear, did I say too much? :p
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Happy birthday and Valentine’s Day, Maria
My little wife saw the light of day for the first time on Valentine's Day 1983, more than two months ahead of schedule.
The story goes that she was absolutely determined to be born on Valentine's Day. So determined, actually, that she completely disregarded the fact that being born two months early is an incredibly dangerous exercise!
It's probably true too... She's the most loving person you'll ever meet! A perfect wife and my bestest friend!!!
Happy birthday, Maria... And happy Valentine's Day!
:Marius
:o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Definitely not our last trip to Melbourne
Maria and I had a great four-day weekend in Melbourne... We both loved the city! Melbourne has a very European feel to it, and that went down very well with me!
While I love being in Australia, I've been a bit blue from time to time, missing my family and Norway! Melbourne certainly lifted my spirits! In fact, I haven't felt that close to "my European roots" since last time I was back in Norway, two years ago!!!
Like I mentioned, we spent four days in Melbourne... But we didn't get to see much! That is... There is so much to see just within the city centre, that we never ventured outside during our stay there...
Our first day was spent walking around Melbourne, waiting for our hotel room to clear up... Maria didn't like this very much! Soon, she hated Melbourne and just wanted to go back to Brisbane! But a nice Chinese ice tea and a bit of a rest lifted her spirits, and soon she loved it just as much as I did!
The second day was spent in Melbourne Aquarium. We had a look at the world's largest squid brought on-shore and lots of fish, shark and other sea creatures.
We also managed to track down Chinatown and a great little Japanese restaurant called Meiji Japanese Cafe. We ate at Meiji three times during our stay! It's cheap, the food is great and the staff is very friendly... Highly recommended!
Our third day in Melbourne was also our anniversary. We went to Mass at St Patrick Cathedral - a giganormous church just outside the central business district. We managed to get a blessing on our anniversary from the Archbishop too, which was very nice!
After mass, we met up with Anne and Daniel! They are friends of ours from Brisbane, but Anne was moving to Melbourne that weekend, so we got the chance to meet up. We had lunch in a restaurant in Lygon Street - Melbourne's Italian quarter.
In the evening, Maria and I went to anniversary dinner back at Meiji. Lots of good food!!!
The last day was again spent walking aimlessly around Melbourne, taking in the sights and sounds!
Melbourne is possibly the nicest city I've ever visited... The atmosphere is great ther, and it just felt like home to me! Hopefully, we'll get a chance to live there some day! :o)
Although, it doesn't really matter where I live as long as I'm with my incredibly beautiful, charming, smart, bouncy, loving, cute, gorgeous, lovable little wife!
See 25 photos in this story's gallery
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Getting old…
Aye... Just had a stray thought... I'm turning 26 in a few days, I'm married (yay for that), I have a uni degree under my belt, and I'm working full time! I'm even sporting a few gray hairs on my right-hand temple!!!
Update (2006.02.15): I spotted the first few grey hairs on my left-hand temple yesterday!
I'm getting OLD! :s
What happened? Lots of memories from various stages in my life seem really close... Much like yesterday (or at least not more than a couple of months ago)!
Three years old: Waiting down the road for my dad to come driving home from work...
Four: Learnt to read/write, fell through the ice on the lake by our cabin (incredibly cold and scary)...
Five: Scared of the girls that lived down the road...
Seven: Had my first day of school...
Eight: Totally in love with the new girl in our class...
Ten: Starting grade four (felt really big that day), started learning English!
Thirteen: Started junior-high (felt even bigger), started training karate (felt really cool)...
Sixteen: Snatched a silver medal in team competitions in national karate junior championship... Started playing American football!
Seventeen: Went to Mullan, Idaho, America, for a year of high-school...
Nineteen: My team won the American football national junior championship...
Twenty: Russetida (schoolies in Australian) - finishing high-shcool, starting university college...
Twenty-one: Moved to Bergen to study macro economics following a bit of a mishap with my uni application...
Twenty-one: Watched Mission Impossible 2, decided Australia looked like a nice place, applied to do Bachelor of Journalism in Brisbane...
Twenty-two: Moved to Australia, started uni, fell in love with Maria!
Twenty-four: Graduated journalism, got married (yayeeee)!
Twenty-five: Started Master of Commerce (accounting), got full-time communication job with QR, discovered first few gray hairs!
Feeling really old now!!!!!!!
Eeeeeeeeep...
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Got our Internet back…
We finally got our Internet back!!!
After three weeks of waiting, calling our Internet provider, listening to excuses, waiting some more, calling our Internet provider, listening to excuses, waiting some more, calling our Internet provider, listening to excuses, waiting some more, calling our Internet provider (you get the drift), the beloved ADSL light on our modem/router finally started flashing and then came to shine continuously.
As Maria put it in an e-mail to the 239 contacts in her gmail contact list,Yay yay yay!! I'm delirious from this -- we have BROADBAND INTERNET BACK AT HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Whooooo hoooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Gotta love Internet providers!!! :o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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No internet still!!!
It's a bit annoying really... Our Internet provider - iiNet - stuffed our request for moving the telephone and broadband when we relocated, a few weeks ago. They apparently forgot to pass the request on from the helpdesk to the techies! This resulted in us being without telephone at all for about 10 days longer than expected. And on top of that, they apparently need 10-14 working days (read "three weeks") from when the telephone is relocated to get our ADSL connection up and running...
Slightly annoying! (Although, I'd still recommend iiNet! Once everything is up and running they're a great and cheap-ish Internet provider!)
I've spent the last two hours on the Internet now, so it's probably time to pull the plug! Hope everyone out there is well...
Will be back with further updates in a few days!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Still alive, barely kicking
It's been a pretty long week for Maria and me. Moving house, which we started on last Saturday, took until Tuesday night due to the incredible amount of junk we've accumulated over the past years. Note to self: Have spring cleaning each year!
Speaking of cleaning, do I have a professional-cleaners horror story to tell?! Yep, I do... But that's for later!
Anyhow, we're finally settled into our new place, have had our first dinner party there and are generally very happy. The insurance has been moved, the newspaper will be delivered to our new door from Monday, we have electricity and running water! The only thing missing is our telephone and Internet...
Our phone company made a silly little mistake and forgot to actually pass on the request to move our telephone line, so we'll be without until over the weekend. And the broadband won't be up and running for yet another week, at the best! But we're coping! :o)
Will come back with a new update soon!
Hope all is well with anyone and everyone who read this blog! :o)
:Marius
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Moving this weekend…
Maria and I are moving house this weekend! We're hoping to empty our old unit and stuff our new one in one to two days and get it all over and done with before I go back to work on Monday! We're having cleaners coming in on Monday to tidy up the old place before we hand it over on Wednesday.
Sadly, we'll be without telephone and internet for a few days, and without broadband for almost two weeks... And that's just if everything goes smoothly! So in the meantime, there won't be too many interesting things happening here. But check back! I'll return with new updates from Australia when you least expect it!
Take care everyone!!!
:Marius
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Carols, fire, Melbourne and moving
Maria and I went to Carols at Candlelight at St Luke's Catholic Church in Buranda today... The whole thing was an outdoors affair with a good-old Aussie BBQ and some of the state's best classical musicians. All in all, a great couple of hours of Australian Christmas - on a picnic rug, surrounded by torches, candlelights and glow sticks.
There was a bit more action than we bargained for though: The torches turned out to be slightly less safe than assumed, so a bit of firefighting had to be carried out...
One of the torches started catching fire in places where it shouldn't. This resulted in oil leaking out of the container. Somebody moved the torch away from the crowd, onto solid surface... But along the way, oil dripped out and put some grass on fire!
Maria to the rescue! Armed with a water bottle, my little wife resolutely put out the budding grass fire! But things weren't going so swell with the torch...
By now, oil was running out of the cannister and down a gutter. Soon enough, the oil caught fire and things were looking a bit bleak! The bush hanging over the flames threatened to go up in flames...
Luckily, I found a fire extinguisher in the church, so pretty soon the little drama was all over!
Back to the carols...
It was a lovely little evening out! Quite a few people found their way to the mini-concert, the BBQ sizzled and the musicians played like they'd never played before! And it was a good chance to say "see ya" to our friend Anne Coles, who is moving to Melbourne this weekend!
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In other news, Maria and I are going to Melbourne to celebrate our 1st wedding anniversary! We're leaving on January 19, and staying until the evening of January 23.
We've booked a room with breakfast at the Radisson on Flagstaff hotel, a stone's throw from the Victoria Markets and just a few minutes' walk from the CBD.
Needless to say, we're both very muchly looking forward to going! We've never really left the state together before - aside from a few hours in Byron Bay, which is just across the state border to New South Wales.
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Maria and I will be moving this weekend! We were told the owners of the place we're in now wanted to take over the unit, so we had to find a new one!
Luckily, finding a new place to stay proved a reasonably quick affair!
After a few days of searching, we found a place in Taringa, just one kilometer from where we live now!
It's a two-bedroom unit, with a decent-size livingroom and a tiny little balcony for plant growing and newspaper reading.
We're relocating on Saturday and Sunday and will be handing back the keys to our old place on Wednesday January 11!
Call us if you want our new address! :o)
See 14 photos in this story's gallery
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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A new year, a new layout
Hi everyone, and Happy New Year!!!!!!! Thought it was time for a new layout, so here you go! Two years to the day (give or take a week) since the last change of layout to koalaplanet.org! The biggest change to the website - apart from the new layout - is a new content management system that will make it easier for me to keep the website updated. However, the change of systems means I have had to transfer all the images from the old layout to the new - one by one. I still have about 20 stories to go, so if you want to see the images for the oldest of entries (published around 2003), you have to head to the old site. Also, the comments feature and the about-pages in the menu at the top are not ready yet... But be patient - they will show up soon!
For now, happy new year everyone! I will return shortly with new stories from my life here in Australia, and a whole lot more photos!
:o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Nature has been closed for your safety…
We apologise for any inconvenience, and if you try to go for a hike we'll fine you $225.
A few days ago, Lisa, Maria and I took a quick daytrip to Mount Tamborine, one hour's drive south of Brisbane. We spent about ten minutes to plan the trip, another ten minutes to get ready, did some picnic-food shopping and got in the car - all ready for our little adventure. Little did we know that nature apparently was far too unsafe for human beings.
The drive down south was fairly uneventful, save for the odd display of Australian brilliance at highway driving. Somehow, highways of at least two lanes going in the same direction seem to bring out the Formula-1 driver in quite a few motorists...
Having dodged a couple near-hits and witnessed a number of overtakes that surely should have brought out the black flag, we were at the foot of Mt Tamborine. About 20 minutes and 20 litres of diesel later (the good-old Landcruiser consumes about the same amount of diesel per day as a small Latin-American country), we were at the top of the mountain with stunning vistas on all sides.
From the east of Mt Tamborine are simultaneous views of Surfers Paradise and Brisbane (which are some 60 kilometres apart), and from the west you can take in stunning hinterland vistas.
Having no time for such things (my little wife finds views a wee bit boring after about 90 seconds :p), we headed half-way down the mountainside on the opposite end of the top, towards Cedar Creek Falls National Park. That area has a whopping 1.4 kilometres of walking tracks that take the determined hiker past a lookout point overlooking beautiful waterfalls and down to rock pools at the bottom of a deep gorge.
Unfortunately, we came nowhere near the rock pools, much to Maria's dismay (she is very, very, very fascinated by rock pools - a fascination I must admit I share with her to a certain degree. It's my dirty little secret :o). Apparently the walking track (which is sealed in asphalt and has railings all the way down the gorge) was far too unsafe for any two-legged creature to traverse, and serious injury, death and a $225 fine would result from any attempts to brave Mother Nature.
Since there was a Norwegian among us (me, me, me), nothing nature does could possibly harm us. However, we did not like the prospect of a $225 fine per person, so we headed back up the mountain to try our luck in a different national park (they have managed to cram in 11 of them just on this particular mountain).
Ten minutes and yet another 20 litres of diesel later, we were back up on the top of Mt Tamborine and parked at the entrance to Joalah National Park. According to the Environmental Protection Agency's website, Joalah sports rainforest tracks, a large rock pool and "an impressive view of the falls and surrounding columnar basalt rockface. Swimming is prohibited at the falls. A restricted access area below Curtis Falls protects an important glow-worm colony."
Joalah sounded quite nice, so we wanted to check it out!
Having parked the car and attempted to peruse the on-site public toilet, we were ready to start our big hike. This wouldn't have been a problem, had it not been for a big "STOP" sign blocking the path leading into the park. According to the park ranger we talked to, a very, very big tree had fallen over the path leading up to the lookout point with "an impressive view of the falls and surrounding columnar basalt rockface. Swimming is prohibited at the falls. A restricted access area below Curtis Falls protects an important glow-worm colony."
Like I said, a big tree had fallen! So the rangers had closed off the path to clear the way and make sure the area was safe. Apparently, the area was safe enough now, except for the path leading up to the lookout - where the fallen tree was. So the ranger gallantly let us pass the big "STOP" sign. We hiked merrily into the rainforest, down the path leading to a creek running through the bottom of a little valley, found pretty fungi growing on tree branches, said hello to a construction worker in coveralls, tried to spot an eel that another merry hiker had seen, took some pictures and had our walk cut short by a big sign telling us that the part of nature behind the big, big fence just there was closed for our safety. Serious injury, death and a $225 fine would result from any attempts to climb the fence and brave Mother Nature.
Apparently, there was great danger of rock falls in the area. While we couldn't spot any hillsides or cliffs steep enough to cause a rock to come tumbling down the valley and kill anyone in its path, we didn't like the prospect of a $225 fine this time either. So we decided to head back up to the car, find a nice, safe spot without too much nature and eat our picnic food.
After a bit of searching, we found the way to the Tamborine Mountain Botanical Gardens. We found a nice, safe spot where we could just barely hear the noise of two lawnmowers and a boat-like contraption that was clearing the ponds of weeds and other water-growths, and commenced our picnic!
The food was quite nice: Bread rolls, Norwegian Jarlsberg cheese, 200-square-centimetre-sized slices of roast beef, softdrinks and Christmas pretzels.
Thoroughly satisfied, gastronomically speaking, we decided to give up on nature, get some fudge and sit down and watch the views from the top. Afterwards we headed back to Brisbane and agreed that it had been a nice and safe day out in fairly natural surroundings.
See 11 photos in this story's gallery
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Hole in one… On the first shot!!!
No... I'm not the next big thing to happen to international golf... But I did just land myself a full-time job! On my first attempt ever! :D
A few weeks ago, I applied for a corporate communications job with a large, large Queensland corporation...
I must have done something right - mostly thanks to my friend and former journalism tutor Mandy, who coached me in job searching - because a couple of weeks later I was called to an interview about the job. I was a bit iffy about how it went because I've never been to a serious job interview before... But it must have been alright... Because a few days ago, I got a call with a job offer!!! :D :D :D
Needless to say, I'm over the moon about it! Over the last few months I've really begun feeling that I should get out of full-time studies and into the workforce! Would like to bring in some money instead of living off scholarships and student loans! I'm starting on December 12. Will tell more later!!! Hope everyone is having a good advent season!
:o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Exam-fun and almost holidays
Hey everyone! If someone is still reading this site anymore, that is! :o) It's been a pretty slow koalaplanet-semester!
I'm almost done with my exams now - just one more to go... Statistics tomorrow at 1430! (Wish me luck!)
Really looking forward to the break - however much of a break I get... I'm looking for full-time jobs at the moment. Reckon working full-time, studying part-time and earning money would be better than studying full-time and racking up more of a study debt!!!
But like I said, looking forward to the break. Maria and I both need it! We sat down and thought about it for a few seconds and realised we hadn't had any time off together - without having a very insane social calender - for about one-and-a-half years now!
That is, last (Australian) summer break we got married - so things were a bit hectic! And last winter break (July), just vanished in a little puff of smoke. So yes, we're looking forward to it!
Maria has already finished her exams and is currently starting to cool down a little after the most insane semester in her engineering degree. The final assignment she handed in was a 400-page group assignment, in which they designed a go-cart-like racing car!!!!! Fairly hardcore!
On my side of things, I've had quite a memorable exam period! At least in terms of my corporate accounting exam!
Corporate accounting is the hardest course in my degree, and the exam was worth a fair bit! I was pretty well prepared for it, except for one little detail... I hadn't double-checked the exam location! So when I came to the uni's main examination venue, all ready with calculator and bean-counting knowledge - there was no sign of my fellow book-fudgers... They were all in another room, about 200 meters away - where they should be!
Being a Saturday evening, the libraries - and consequently all computers on campus - were closed. So I needed to call someone (Maria) to check where my exam would be. But I had left my cell phone in the car. Short on time, I jogged to the student centre - which students in exam-distress are advised to do - only to find that it was closed!
Ever so slightly paniced (I didn't want to do the course again next semester) I borrowed a mobile off a nice person outside the student centre. Maria told me the location of the exam - just next to where I'd been before jogging across campus! So, barefoot with sandals in hand I started sprinting across campus again... I was already late! Up the stairs to the examination room and... Darkness!!! Nothing or nobody there!
I ran down and outside and borrowed another mobile - this time from a couple who was trying to have a romantic evening out (on campus :o) and didn't need a sweating, short-on-breath, stressed-out student in their lives. But they were nice about it...
Maria once again confirmed that I was supposed to be upstairs where there appeared to be nothing going on... So I ran up and to my bewilderment discovered a hallway I'd missed the previous time I was up there! This hallway took me straight to the exam - just a little too late... But luckily the invigilators let me sit the exam! They must have felt bad for me seeing how I was all dripping and out of breath from running across campus twice (it's a really, really big campus)... Invigilators (yes, it is a word) are my friends!!! :D
It went well after all!!! My ever-so-tiny mishap didn't affect my performance beyond a 10-minute cooling-down period and I walked out of there reasonably happy, and certain I won't have to come back for corporate accounting ever again!
And that's my story! :o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Statistics is fun! :p
It's 2:30am and I've just finished up a semester-portfolio assignment for my statistics class ECON7300 - Statistics for Business and Economics. (Fun all day long!)
Think my assignment is holding up alright... At least until the last few questions, which were finished on the wrong side of midnight! My writing seems to suffer a certain drop in quality as the day passes by and a number of unnecessary words and a fair bit of crap sneak into my language!
The course isn't really all that exciting, but you can't say I haven't learnt anything... The main thing the teaching staff has tried to instill in us is how to analyse the relationship between two or more variables.
To demonstrate my knowledge, I shall perform a regression analysis on time's effect on my above mentioned tendency to "crap on" as the day fades away. Such an analysis goes straight to the heart of the assignment I just finished!
I made observations every 15 minutes as to the quality of my writing. The observations were made over a time period of 7.5 hours late at night. Good writing was awarded with points on the lower end of a scale from 1 to 15. Writing with much crap in it scored higher on the scale.
A linear relationship was assumed, and the population model was, therefore,
Y = B1 + B2X + E or
Crapping on factor = B1 + B2(Time) + Error term
Where B1 is the regression constant and B2 is the correlation coefficient. In other words, B1 is the level of crapping on at time 0, while B2 is the increase in the "crapping-on factor" of my writing for each time period.
For the purpose of testing the crapping-on model for significance, the following hypotheses were set up:
H0: B2 equals 0
H1: B2 not equal to 0
If the null hypothesis (H0) can be rejected at a 5% significance level (95% confidence level), it is reasonable to assume that the crapping on factor does change over time and that the two variables, therefore, are related.
The data was fed into Minitab 14, a stats software. It returned the following analysis of the "Crapping on factor" as a function of time:
Regression Analysis: Crapping on factor versus Time
The regression equation is
Crapping on factor = - 1.33 + 0.350 Time
Predictor Coef SE Coef T P
Constant -1.3310 0.6281 -2.12 0.043
Time 0.35039 0.03538 9.90 0.000
S = 1.67725 R-Sq = 77.8% R-Sq(adj) = 77.0%
As you probably already understand, since the P-value of time is less than 0.05 (the significance level), the null hypothesis can be rejected. There IS a correlation between the quality of my writing and time of the day. :D
What the regression analysis says, is that the quality of my writing - as ranked on the scale from 1-15, 15 being utter dumbness - drops over time. More specifically, it says that its crapness score increased by 0.35 points every 15 minutes for the 7.5 hours of observation.
Before observations started, my expected crapness level was -1.331 - or, in other words, so good that it was off the scale. Sadly, at time 30 (the last observation), my level of crap writing would have gone up to 9.17.
The purpose of all of this? Nothing really... Just to prove myself and my regression analysis right. At the moment my crap factor should be about 11.27, which seems to be quite correct considering what I just managed to write here! :o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Six-month anniversary at Mt Tamborine
In July, Maria and I went to Mount Tamborine to celebrate our six-month wedding anniversary... See the photos here!
Mount Tamborine is just over one hour's drive south of Brisbane... It's a great little community on the top of a pretty big mountain plateau with insane views and vistas! From the mountain, you can see Surfers Paradise and Brisbane, pretty much at the same time, without problems!
While we were a bit unlucky with the weather, it was still a nice trip... The mountain has about 10 national parks with hiking tracks and lots of beautiful nature. Due to the less than good weather, we only went for one walk.
We stayed at Camelot B&B, which was nice enough... The big drawback about that place was that the rooms functioned as sound-boxes - seemingly amplifying any noise made inside and projecting it into the neighbouring rooms... Soundproofing must have been a pretty foreign concept to whomever constructed those rooms!
But the people there were nice and the breakfast was great!
The Polish Place across the road from Camelot was probably what made the trip! They serve traditional Polish dinners in a very Polish setting. I had pork hock in beer sauce and a bottle of the most beautiful beer (Polish) I have ever tasted! Maria went for a very big sausage and was quite happy with that one too!
The photos from the Polish Place didn't turn out very well, but you can check their website on http://www.polishplace.com.au.
All in all it was a nice little trip! Just too bad we didn't have more time! We'll definitely be back... And next time, at the Polish Place! :p
See 14 photos in this story's gallery
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Maria’s weblog
Maria has made herself a little weblog at MSN Spaces! Check it out here!!! :o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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‘Tis the season to be stressed out
Again... Our favourite time of the year! Exam period...
...which explains the one-month posting drought on Koalaplanet! Well, partly anyway!
But without delving into excuses, I'm alive (if anybody was wondering).
Just walked out of my first Master-level commerce exam... Financial management! It was a lot easier than feared! Absolutely stuffed it on one question, but did alright on the rest.
Now I just have a management systems exam, a joyful business-law exam and an accounting exam to go. Then holidays for four weeks!
Maria still has four exams before she's done! But she finishes two days ahead of me, so she gets more time off from uni!
Norway
Looks like we're going to Norway in the middle of December to celebrate Christmas there! Will stay for about four weeks.
Better run off to the books! Just didn't want it to be more than one month between the entries here, as may be deduced from the quality and fun-ness of this posting! :o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Hurra for Lånekassen (og 17. mai)!!!
Og gratulerer med dagen!!! :o) Today was Norway Day... Brisbane celebrated along with the rest of the world!!! :p
First off, thanks must go out - as was loudly pointed out in the 17-mai parade - to Lånekassen, the Norwegian Educational Loan Fund. Without it, there wouldn't be 1500 Norwegian students in Brisbane celebrating Norway's centennary as an independent country.
As usual, QUT's Kidney Lawn (where did they come up with that name???) played host to the day-time festivities, including the parade.
With a bit of help from Unca Police, hundreds of Norwegians - screaming, singing, waving big flags - ruled the streets of Brisbane's business district, drawing puzzled looks from onlookers - many of whom probably think Norway is the capital of Sweden! :o)
(No, really... Australians aren't that bad at geography! But still... If you've never heard about Norway Day before, the parade would be quite a mindboggling sight. Kind of like an ANZAC-day on steroids, just without any military involvement. :o)
The parade rounded up at the steps of the make-shift Royal Palace, where the Royal Family waved to the people. And after the royals had exercised their wrists for a while, everybody moved on to gorge on locally made Norwegian hot-dogs, waffles with Ski Queen cheese (brunost) and other Norwegian goodies.
Happy Norway Day, everybody! :o)
See 9 photos in this story's gallery
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Shopping and bag checking
One thing I still haven't become used to after more than three years in Australia is bag checking. If you go into any store in Queensland (don't know how it is for the rest of Australia), you'll most likely be asked to let a store employee look through your bag before you leave.
(I'm just procrastinating now... In the middle of a law essay, which I'm very-very tired of... So I needed to vent some frustration! Bag-checking seems to be a good victim!)
Most stores in Queensland - and in particular the bigger chains, like Big-W, K-Mart, Target etc. have employees whose sole purpose in life is to check the contents of your bag.
When you leave the store, they will ask you to open your bag so they can have a look for stolen items. (They don't say they are looking for "stolen items", of course... But that's the real reason!) Most of them are fairly nice about it (as nice as you can be sticking your nose in other people's bags), and just take a really quick peak inside whatever compartment you open up.
But... Some stores make sure to place over-zealous workers at the gates. For some strange reason, they always appear to be strict-looking ladies that are within a decade of retirement.
If you're unlucky enough to encounter one of these people (I'm sure they make employee of the month all the time), you will be asked to open every major compartment of your bag... And not only that, you'll most likely end up having to take things out of your bag so that they can see all the contents!
Now, that just makes me annoyed!
I wonder what the economic benefit is of treating every customer like a potential thief or at least a very suspect person who clearly has many, many dodgy things in their bag...
I have a sneaking feeling that all it does is to annoy honest customers and put a serious damper on the whole "shopping experience".
I mean, there are security cameras everywhere in these stores, "loss prevention officers" (they're very good at fancy titles here) patrol all the time under cover or in flashy uniforms, and on the public announcement system you frequently hear friendly messages like "Security to sector 2, please" (which always makes me wonder if I am in sector 2).
And to make matters worse... The whole bag-checking is apparently voluntary - as I found out three minutes ago! They can't force you to open your bag!!!
There is no law specifically allowing bag-checking to be carried out. Rather, it's a retailer policy that has been endorsed by the Office of Fair Trading.
The closest thing to legal backing for this policy would most likely be under laws of trespassing. In Australia, property owners are allowed to set terms for entry onto their property. If you do not comply with these terms you must leave immediately or be liable for trespassing charges.
But then... You're actually trying to leave when they want to check your bag anyway!!!
Here's an interesting experiment... Maybe, when in the right mood, faced with one of my favourite bag-checkers, I'll refuse to open my bag... Stand up for privacy, good customer treatment and the fight against oppressive bag-checking policies!!! "Viva la rev..."
Then again, maybe not! :p
Links:
- Bag-checking fact sheet
- Bag-checking 101 for consumers
My list of worst bag-checking places:
1. K-Mart
2. Target
3. Big-W
4. Coles/Woolworth
My list of best bag-checking places:
1. Myer (they don't check your bags) :o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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A temporary resident… Me?! :o)
Finally got my temporary residency visa today!
After filling out countless forms, getting friends to swear that I didn't marry Maria to get a visa (I Love Maria :po), having my blood sucked out of me to see if I have HIV (negative), being zapped to check for TB (negative too), going through a general health check (all healthy), two police checks (not a criminal), and an immigration interview, I got my temporary residency visa today! I even got to pay around $2200 for the fun! :o)
But it was worth every single dollar, and every single ray of x to hit my chest! Now I am free to stay in Australia with my little wife - whom I Love so much - forever and ever! :o)
Almost...
In two years, it's time to get a permanent residency visa! But as long as I'm a good boy and don't get into trouble with the law, and as long as Maria and I are still together (of course we will be - I Love her and we're in it for life), getting the PR visa shouldn't be a problem!
Thought I'd just mention it! :p I'm pretty happy right now... I won't have to go back to the Dep't of Immigration for two years (although I don't really mind - there's a few very nice people that work there... seriously)! And Maria and I won't have to worry about any immigration problems for a while! Quite de-stressing!!!
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Winter is drawing closer here... We got the oil-radiators out of the garage yesterday! You see, at night the temperature is now dropping to around 15C, which is very nice really... But when the apartment isn't all that insulated it still gets a bit cold!
No photos today, but I should be able to post something with the next update! A bit busy at the moment... Got an essay to write, a couple of websites to design and an optional additional mid-semester finance exam to study for! :o)
Well... Back to it! :o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Schnappi, das kleine Krokodil
I might be a little late in discovering Schnappi, das kleine Krokodil... But this page made my day! :p
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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A quick update
Here are a few photos and a quick update of everything and nothing in particular!
Not much happening here - as usual... I realise that! :p
In my defence, Maria and I have been really busy lately! There's been a lot of things going on!
Work and study
On my part, I'm working on my little business - Berg Business Solutions - and studying. It takes up a fair bit of time. I'm currently working on a media website for a pretty big Queensland organisation.
Also, the workload in my Master of Commerce is slightly bigger than what was the case for my journalism studies...
No surprise there! :p Journalism was peachy!!!
I'm currently studying Australian business law, finance, financial accounting and management systems.
It's all really interesting! My favourite this semester is the finance course! It's strange, but I actually like it... And this is despite swearing never to touch anything remotely mathsy after my little stint as an economy-student in Bergen.
I realise it's not very complicated math at the moment, but it's good! And very handy to know.
The law-course is good too. Our lecturer is quite entertaining, as long as you're not easily scared! :p
Accounting is very nitty-gritty, with 100s of pages of fun accounting standards to read thru. But it's good still.
The management course is so far a waste of time... :s Our first assignment is to make a webpage. I know it's good for people to learn those things, but the html skills they teach in that course will get you exactly nowhere! Well, hope the Excel and Access part of the course will be better.
Married life
It's really great being married! We both love it, Maria and I!
Maria is there when I need her, and I'm there to de-stress Maria when she needs me! And we fall asleep next to each other and wake up next to each other and take care of each other! It's just great! I love being married, and I Love my little wife!!! :D
Not really much more to say there... Except, forget engagement everyone... It SUCKS! Middle of nowhere!!! Married life is the way to go!!!
Photos
The photos in the gallery are from when my family came to Australia for our wedding and a little holiday! :o)
Right now...
...I'm procrastinating. I should really be reading up on my accounting standards.
I'll try to write more soon! :p
See 9 photos in this story's gallery
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Bachelor complete!
I'm putting my money on a passing grade for my last exam... Although I absolutely stuffed it, I think I scraped enough points to pass the course and, thus, graduate journalism!
That means I'm all done as an undergraduate student at UQ. It's kind of weird!!! My student card has even expired, so I'm not even a student any more - on paper anyway!
But I'll be back with a new student card - getting 50% off public transport and movie tickets - in just a couple of weeks! That's about how long I figure it'll take to finalise my postgraduate application for a Master of Commerce.
I mean, I'm already accepted into that program. I just have to actually graduate first before they give me the go to enrol!
Holidays and wedding
After ten months of cramming (a truth with certain modifications :p), I'm all ready for a long break... And a long break is what I get! Ahead of me are twelve - 12 - weeks of no uni! I have lots to do in my break though - most importantly, getting married!
There's still a whole lot to prepare for the wedding and life after the big day... Such as getting a new place to stay! I have to find someone to take over my room at the place where I live now, and then Maria and I have to find a new appartment, so that we can start our life as husband and wife together in the same place from day one!
I'm quite looking forward to that! :o)
Photos
Today's photos are from UQ's parklands... I took them in late October, but I haven't had time to put them up here until now.
I set out to get some photos of the jacaranda blossom - the Australian version of the more famous Japanese cherry blossom - sakura. Sadly, I missed out on the jacaranda peak. Too many exams! But I got a couple of nice shots of the blossom anyway, and of course some bird shots!
Better luck next year, I guess! :p
See 9 photos in this story's gallery
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Work permit for international students
International student in Australia and feeling the financial squeeze??? You might want to pick up a little job on the side of your studies, just to add a few dollars to your weekly budget. Here's how you get a work permit.
Australian student visas come with a no-work condition - meaning you are not allowed to take up paid work while staying in Australia.
However, once you have started your studies, it is fairly easy to get a work permit, which will allow you to work 20 hours per week during the semester and unlimited hours during university breaks.
All it takes is filling out a form and paying AU$55.
Applying online
You may be eligible to apply for your work permit through the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs's (DIMIA) website.
The application can be made on this page.
Prior to applying you need two things: a credit card and an electronic confirmation from your university that you have commenced your studies.
To obtain this confirmation, you will need to go to the student centre of your university and tell them you need an electronic confirmation of course commencement.
When this has been done, you need to wait for minimum of one hour before taking the next step - filling out the actual application.
Nitty-gritty details
You will need to provide details such as name/address/birthdate, passport number and visa number, and a few other things when applying for the permit.
On the last page of the application, you will be asked to enter your credit card details so that DIMIA can get its hands on AU$55 of your hard-earned money.
After submitting the online application, you should receive a confirmation e-mail with a reference number. Take note of this number as it is necessary for checking the status of your application.
According to DIMIA, your application should be processed in about one hour. However, things may well go a lot faster... In my case, it took two minutes!
If you are granted a work permit, you need to make your way to your nearest DIMIA office to pick up a new visa tag for your passport.
Applying offline
If you wish to apply in writing, you will need to obtain or print Form 157P [PDF].
If you go for this option, DIMIA will need about 30 days to process your application - so if you're eligible, I suggest you apply online!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Exam and some seriously bad weather
I sat the first of three exams today, in between thunderstorms and a whole lot of rain. The weather has been quite intense the last couple of days, even causing flooding and deaths. (Updated 10/11/04)
First things first, I sat my accounting exam today. Two hours of bean counting! It was alright though... I got most of the questions and problems right, I think, and finished with 10 whole seconds to spare!
Just two more exams and one essay to hand in and I'm (almost) officially done with my Bachelor of Journalism.
Really, really, ridiculously bad weather
Maybe not ridiculously bad... But I like Zoolander - the movie with Ben Stiller - and that quote is my favourite from this movie!
Eh... Getting distracted. What I really wanted to talk about was the weather!
Over the last few days, the weather has been quite schizofrenic... Two days ago it was stinking hot and humid. The thermometer went above 27 degrees Celcius, which isn't really that much. But the humidity made things pretty yucky.
Clothes-stuck-to-skin-and-sweat-pouring-as-soon-as-you-move kind of yucky!
In the evening there was a huge thunderstorm that ruled out any possibility of taking my bike home from Maria's.
Then came yesterday. I conveniently enough decided to journey over to Maria to study just as it started raining and raining... And raining!
The City Cats got all wet indoors because the doors and windows couldn't keep the rainwater out. There was water everywhere in the streets and my umbrella had a hard enough time keeping the upper half of me relatively dry.
Luckily I decided to wear thongs (sandals in Australian!!!), so the little rivers in the streets didn't have much of an effect on me in terms of wet and dripping shoes. My pants were another story...
The evening came and went without much spectacle. However, the morning after (i.e. today) was really humid - around 95% humidity at 0500 - which was kind of yucky as I was out cycling at that time.
Weather gone berserk
It got really sunny and warm (and humid, of course) during the day today, and I wasn't the only sticky person around as I went into my exam.
When I came out again, two hours later, the sky was not very clear anymore... Rather, big grey and blue clouds were gathering up, and now the weather went really berserk...
Maria and I joined some friends for dinner in Sunnybank. As we sat in the outdoors dining area of the foodcourt we were eating at, it started raining cats and dogs and whatever else you can think of that can rain down on you on a really stormy evening...
It was hard talking to each other because the noise of the rain easily drowned normal speech. And the lighting struck more than once just a couple of hundred metres away from us.
On the way back home, the roads and more than a few houses were flooded. We got through. But had the flooding been any worse, we would have been stuck in the car in the middle of the little lake that had formed on the road, just in front of the TV crews that were out filming...
I'm glad we didn't get stuck... Didn't feel like doing car pushing in front of the TV cameras... :p
Sadly...
This may all sound pretty trivial, which - of course - it is... The weather I have described here is quite normal for this time of year in Brisbane and the rest of the Queensland coast.
However, it's not all good fun.
Two girls aged eight and 12 drowned in Bundaberg yesterday as the car they were in was swept by floodwaters into a creek.
A father and his eight-year-old son went missing during flooding, but were later found safe.
Also, many had to be rescued from more or less sticky situations: Three kids got stuck in a creek that flash flooded because of the downpour; two kids had to be helped down from a tree after a body-boarding session in the flooding apparently got a little wild; and a pair had to be rescued off the roof of their car.
The Royal Automobile Club of Queensland (RACQ) received more than 3000 calls from stranded motorists for roadside assistance in just eight hours on Sunday; thousands of homes in the Brisbane area lost electricity for hours; and hail damaged hundreds of homes.
Queensland is quite an interesting state at this time of year!
Related links
More on the two drowned girls:
- Town mourns the loss of two young sisters
- Drowned girls found in creek
More on the missing father and son:
- Hail hits as pair found
More news on the weather:
- Storms cause hail damage...
- Hundreds of homes damaged in QLD rainstorms
- Storms lash QLD for second day
- Downpour causes chaos
Weather forecasts and updates for the region:
- Brisbane metropolitan area forecast
- Last 72 hours from Brisbane
- Weather radar for Southeast Queensland - rainfall LIVE
- The Australian Bureau of Meteorology's QLD pages
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Last day of journalism lectures
I completed what hopefully is the last day of journalism lectures - provided I don't completely fail any exams in a couple of weeks :p - with style and flair... I overslept! :p Also, check out the new photos - faces of UQ!
Today I had my last day of going to lectures and tutorials for journalism... In a week the exams start, and in three weeks I'm all finished with my Bachelor of Journalism!
That was quick! :p
It feels like I just came to Australia for the first time! I can still vividly remember the bug-spraying cabin crew on my first flight to Brisbane, the first drive from the airport to my new place in Loch street, and the orientation session for newly arrived international students...
Then again, I can also remember meeting my Maria for the first time and a lot of other things that have happened to me while I have been here... I've had a great stay in Brisbane so far! And I'm sure it'll get even better in the years to come.
Next year I'm marrying Maria, starting on a Master of Commerce and getting an Australian resident visa... I'm not even going back to Norway for Christmas - which will be a little strange... No snow and sub-zero temperatures. But I get to spend it with my little wife (to-be in two months and a bit) with 40+ degrees and insane humidity, evening storms and lots of hiding in air-conditioned shopping centers.
Things are changing... But it's a good change! (Particularly the marriage part... I'm absolutely looking forward to having Maria as my wife!)
Faces of UQ
On the right are some photos from UQ's St Lucia campus, where I have toddled around for the past 2.5 years! The faces are sandstone carvings on the gigantic building(s) that surround the Great Court. They're actually pretty interesting - but I doubt they get much attention! Most students are far too busy with their assignments to lift their noses out of the books and look up... Good thing there are journalism students! :p
Time for me to get off the computer! Going for a little photo safari and ice cream with Maria. It's 31 degrees here today, I got to bed at 0530 this morning after spending all last night finishing up the multimedia journalism website project, Maria has practically lived in the computer labs for the last week or so, and we have eight exams between us coming up! I think we deserve an ice cream each! :o) (No doubt, Håkon and Nils - read the small talk (in Norwegian) for background - will find ample opportunity to sympathise with my very strenuous life here in Australia! :p)
See 13 photos in this story's gallery
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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New website
Check out the news website I made together with my multimedia journalism group!
As part of our multimedia journalism course, we had to design a news portfolio website and put the stories we've written so far in our journalism degree on it!
Check it out on http://jour3750.koalaplanet.org... It didn't turn out too bad after all!
Now that I got into web-design mode again, a little update of the koalaplanet.org layout might not be too many weeks (or months :p) away... Just not any time the next couple of weeks...
I spent the better part of the last 24 hours finishing up the group website... A bit tired of computers now! Then again... Here I am, typing away! :p
Ahh... I should probably take a break now... Go out and take some photos, maybe!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Break in Rockhampton
Maria and I went to Rockhampton to visit her parents during the mid-semester break. Read on to find some photos of me and her, a dingo, a Japanese garden and a couple of cool little furballs!
Rockhampton is about 650 km north of Brisbane. By car it takes around 7-8 hours to get there; train takes you 7 hours and sets you back around $45 for a student ticket, while plane takes you an hour. Flying with Jetstar is the cheapest way to go and costs from $59.
Rockhampton is the Beef Capital of Australia. With two-million-plus cattle within 250 kilometres, the area probably boasts the highest beef density in the world. But despite all the cows, not much happens in Rocky!
Rockhampton has a fairly nice little business district with old, colonial-style buildings and a park along the river. There used to be a shopping street there as well. I suppose there still is one, in a sense... But in all its wisdom, the city council decided to tear the shopping street up and make car-parks there instead!
There is a surprisingly large botanic garden a little outside the city centre! You won't see the park coming until you're at the gates, and you won't be able to gauge the size of it until you walk around it. Among other things, it has a zoo, Japanese garden, bird enclosure, wetlands, playground, tropical fruits area and a cactus area. Best of all, it's totally free!!! Including the zoo!
Other than trotting around the botanic gardens, we went to the beach in Yeppoon for a swim, took Maria's dad's cars for a drive or two, played with Dud and Barney ("our" cats), and generally relaxed! For the first time in weeks, I actually slept for seven hours two nights in a row! :D (The last week, I've averaged around 4-5 hours per night! :S )
Hopefully it won't be too long until next time I get to go back there... (I must be one of the few people to ever say that about Rockhampton! :p ) Always good to visit my new family!
It's bedtime for me now... I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking! :o)
See 11 photos in this story's gallery
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Greens to decriminalise drugs
Here's an article I wrote for one of my uni courses this semester... It deals with the drug policies of three of Australia's political parties. The background for this article is the upcoming federal election.
Ecstasy and cannabis could be sold over-the-counter if the Greens’ strategy on currently illicit drugs were to become Australian policy.
The Greens call for currently illicit drugs to be “moved outside the criminal framework”. The party suggests that a strategy of educating the public on the effects of drugs and addressing the causes of substance abuse – rather than persecuting drug users – would serve Australia best.
Drugs for sale
While the party policy acknowledges that currently illicit drugs cause problems for users and the society, it suggests certain narcotics should be made available in “controlled environments”. For this reason, the Greens would work to initiate “investigations of options for the regulated supply of social drugs such as ecstasy” and allow the cultivation, sale and possession of cannabis.
There is no mention of how drugs such as GHB and date rape drugs – labelled by the Greens as “drugs of concern” – would be handled by the legal system. However, the party calls for social education on the dangers of such drugs.
Allowing for the sale of certain narcotics, the Greens’ policy nevertheless promises tighter restrictions on the tobacco and alcohol industries.
Tobacco advertising would be banned and alcohol sponsorship and ads would be restricted further. Moreover, all alcoholic drinks would carry health warnings.
The Greens have come under intense fire for its approach to illegal drugs. Minister for justice and customs, Senator Christopher Ellison, labelled it the Greens’ “latest misguided excursion … into policy making”.
“This policy highlights the Greens’ irresponsible approach in relation to the importation, distribution and use of illicit drugs,” Mr Ellison said.
Additionally, the Greens leader, Senator Bob Brown, distanced himself from his own party’s approach to drug availability following the controversy that arose.
“I don't back an open slather, over-the-counter system,” Mr Brown told the Herald Sun.
However, he said the policy represented an alternative to Prime Minister John Howard’s “hard-lined, narrow-minded” approach of criminalizing “everybody who falls prey to the sale of drugs”.
Injecting rooms
Labor’s (ALP) 2004 platform states that the party is committed to improve public safety by working against drug-related crime, lower the spread of disease among drug users, and reduce the use of drugs in Australia. A core element in the party’s drug strategy is “harm minimisation”.
The ALP states its support for supervised injecting rooms to reduce the “costs to the community of illicit drug use” and to bring counselling and treatment closer to drug users.
Like the Greens, Labor calls for education programs and stronger family and community involvement to achieve lower rates of illicit drug use.
However, the policy does not support decriminalisation of currently illegal drugs. Instead, the ALP commits itself to work towards national uniform drug laws, with the aim of “punishing the professional criminal elements of the illicit drug trade”.
Labor also commits to work towards better funding for treatment of drug users and supports clean needle and needle exchange programs. It promises increased funding for treatment services – whether government or non-government run – and calls for research into alternative ways of treating drug addictions.
Tough but humane
The Howard government recently released its updated policy on drugs. The 2004-2009 National Drug Strategy’s (NDS) main mission is one of harm minimisation – “to reduce drug use and the harms caused by drugs in our community”.
By disrupting the manufacture of illicit drugs and dismantling organised crime, the government hopes to reduce the supply of banned substances. The government claims this strategy, in combination with work to prevent people from taking up illicit drugs, will lead to better “health, social and economic outcomes” and reduce the effect of drugs on Australian society.
Additionally, the government strategy outlines steps to make treatment for drug users easily accessible both in the wider community and in the justice system. The NDS also states the need to educate the public on the harmful effects of drugs.
The drug strategy emphasises international cooperation to fight the production, distribution and use of illegal drugs.
It states that Australia works to meet the goals set by the United Nations General Assembly on the World Problem of Drugs. According to these goals, the world should work to significantly reduce the illicit cultivation and manufacture of drugs by 2008.
Australian Drug Foundation (ADF) CEO Bill Stronach has commended the Commonwealth government’s drug policy as leading the world.
“With recent overseas government crackdowns on drug users involving killing and other heavy punishment, Australia's focus on harm minimisation stands out as one of the most humane in the world,” Mr Stronach said.
“Our focus on drug use as a health issue as well as a legal issue has saved hundreds of lives and minimised harmful and disruptive impacts on families and communities.”
In a submission to the evaluation of the National Drug Strategy (NDS), the ADF noted that the underlying principles of the NDS were “sound”.
However, the Government copped criticism for what the ADF termed the “unfortunate ‘politicisation’ of the drugs issue at the expense of alcohol” and a “lack of commitment to serious evaluation and monitoring”.
Medicinal trials
While there are no plans by the government to decriminalise currently illicit drug use, Prime Minister John Howard has lent his support to a four-year trial to use cannabis for medical purposes. The New South Wales trial would allow sufferers of AIDS, cancer and multiple sclerosis to use cannabis for symptom relief.
CEO of The Alcohol and other Drugs Council of Australia (ADCA), Cheryl Wilson, has commended the trial as being a “compassionate approach to improving the quality of life of people coping with conditions such as HIV, cancer and neurological disorders”.
“ADCA rejects any claims that this is a step towards the legalisation of cannabis,” Ms Wilson said.
“We use many other drugs such as opioids and cocaine for medical purposes and this has had no impact on their illegal status, nor has it resulted in more positive community attitudes towards heroin and cocaine.”
She said her organization called on the governments to “recognise the potential therapeutic value of this drug and to support further research into the possible benefits of cannabis”.
Drug policies, the short version
Greens
- Decriminalise possession and personal use of all currently illegal drugs
- Decriminalise and regulate cultivation and sale of cannabis
- Allow sale of social drugs like ecstasy through controlled venues
- Educate the community on effects and harms of drug abuse
Labor
- Keep criminal sanctions for possession and use of currently illegal drugs
- Deter and punish professional criminal elements in drug trade
- Support state-run injecting rooms and other forms of harm minimisation
- Educate the community on effects and harms of drug abuse
Coalition government
- Dismantle organised crime to stem the supply of illegal drugs
- Work to prevent people taking up illegal drugs
- Make treatment for drug problems easily accessible
- Educate the community on effects and harms of drug abuse
Pages I consulted for this article
- ADCA media release
- ADF on NDS
- ADF press release
- ALP platform 2004
- Greens drug policy
- Senator Ellison - press release
- National Drugs Strategy
- Bob Brown - news story
- Government report card
- Prime Minister - press release
- Injecting rooms in NSW
- SMH blog
- UN drug goals
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Our wedlog…
Maria and I have just set up a little webpage where we'll post articles, pictures and info relating to our upcoming wedding. It's design is a work in progress, but we'll get there! :o) Click here to get to our wedlog!
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Getting married in January!!!
Oi, everyone!!! Read here!!! Big news!!!!!!! :o)
Maria and I have decided to get married in January!!!! :o)
The exact day is Saturday, January 22nd, 2005, and it looks like it will be a morning wedding!
So far, the plan is to have the wedding ceremony in the Catholic church in St Lucia (click for map).
Maria and I are - needless to say - very, very excited about this! As soon as the ceremony, reception place, priest, music, menu, speeches, flowers, cake, hair dressers, bridal dress, tuxedo, make-up artist (???), guest list, invitations, new appartment, moving furniture, breaking lease on the old appartment, gift registry, cantor, wedding webpage, honeymoon, photographer, best man & co, videographer, study, music, intention-to-marry form, Australian temporary resident visa, table setting, organist, application for master of commerce, exams, graduation, cancelling plane tickets to Norway for this Christmas, bridal suite, planning my family's stay here, wedding rings, and all the other things I forgot to mention right now are taken care of, Maria and I can relax and enjoy life as husband and wife!!!
I'm really, really, really looking forward to married life - sharing my entire life with the girl I Love!!!! :D (Of course, I'm looking forward to the actual wedding as well!!! And although that to-do list right there is a bit chaotic, I do actually have things under control - believe it or not! :o)
Oh yes... I'm not coming to Norway this Christmas - for obvious reasons (see previous couple of paragraphs)! :p The plan now is for Maria and me to visit Norway sometime during 2005 - either in July or for Christmas. So, my friends back home... Do you want to drop by Brisbane, Australia in January??? Plane tickets are just +/- 10.000NOK! ;o)
Now it's time for me to go to bed! But updates on the wedding will definitely follow! Hopefully I can get a little wedding website up and running sometime in the next month or two!
Nightie!!! :o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Pelicans, terrorists and South Bank
What the... Not much of a connection, you say? Well, you're right! :p
There isn't much of a connection here, except that the videos and photos were all shot/made within the same few weeks!
Terrorism
Last semester I took a TV journalism course as part of my journalism degree. Of course, we had to produce a couple of TV news stories as part of the assessment for that course. One of those was a story on terrorist fears in Australia that I did together with Mark Wong. Here it is! I did the filming of the city and the interviews. Mark filmed the interviews and did the voice over.
Watch the story here (right-click to save as...):
- Terrorist fears (WMV file, 8.2 megabytes)
If nothing else, at least you get a little glimpse of Brisbane city centre here! :o)
South Bank
Inspired by all the TV journalism, I went to South Bank and shot a bit of video there! I put it all together and added some music!
Watch the video here (right-click to save as...):
- South Bank - Paradise in Brisbane (WMV file, 8.4 megabytes)
Pelicans
A while ago, Maria and I took the City Cat to Bretts Wharf for no apparent reason except to get out of the Brisbane CBD (Central Business District). Out there, we saw lots of pelicans - which I didn't even know existed here! I've actually never even seen pelicans before! :p They're huge creatures! Check out the photos on the right.
PS: Masters degree
Just to have mentioned it... A couple of days ago, I handed in my application for a Master of Commerce (Professional Accounting)! If all goes to plan, I'll be starting on my second degree in March 2005. The upcoming semester is the last of my journalism bachelor, and I feel I need another degree before I hit the employment market, so here we go... :p
That's all from Brisbane for now... Will be back in not too long! Hi to everyone home in Norway! :D
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Lazy break…
Still one and a half weeks to go of the winter break... And it's well deserved! :p
The return of uni-life is not very far away, and I'm looking forward to returing to campus! It's quite nice to laze around Brisbane together with my Maria and not having to worry about lectures, assignments and exams! But I suppose neglecting uni won't get me far in life!
Maria and I have spent the last few weeks recovering from the exam and essay-hand-in period, going for walks in Brisbane, roaming the shopping centers, going to Rockhampton to celebrate a friend's 21st birthday and visit Maria's parents, catching up on all the movies we didn't have time to watch during the last month of the semester, and reading the fifth Harry Potter book (great stuff!!!)... I could go on and on! :o)
The pictures on the side are from Kangaroo Point. Maria and I went for a walk out there a couple of weeks ago. We had a nice little picnic, and then Maria somehow managed to fall asleep on a park bench! So while she was beyond reach, I pulled out my camera and snapped a few pictures!
I'll try to post more pictures in the next few days... But that's all for now! I'm off to bed and a bit of reading Harry Potter 5 before falling asleep!
G'nite! :o)
See 6 photos in this story's gallery
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Mobile in Australia
Coming to Australia with a mobile phone? You'll probably want to get an Australian SIM-card! Here's what to do!
This article is an update of an article (Mobiltelefon i Australia) I wrote two years ago. (And yes, it was in Norwegian! :o)
There are many, many mobile operators here. I will not give a complete overview of all of them... Rather, I'll pick at Telstra, Optus, Virgin and Vodafone, just to give you an idea of what options are available for you.
First off, if you're not staying here permanently, it's probably best to get a prepaid subscription (kontantkort). Otherwise, many of the mobile companies seem to demand that you put down a security deposit to sign up for a monthly plan. That's what happened to me, anyway!
Getting a prepaid card is really simple. You just drop by a mobile-store and pick up a starter kit... You usually pay around $30, which goes towards your call credit.
Here's a little run-down of the prepaid offers from a few of the biggest mobile operators:
Telstra
Telstra offers a couple of different prepay options.
With Telstra Prepaid you calls cost $0.88 per minute between 0700 and 1900, and $0.44 between 1900 and 0700. SMS costs $0.25 per message.
Telstra Prepaid Plus lets you choose between the same call price all day long, or more expensive calls during day and cheaper calls at night. The latter option gives you $1.00-per-minute calls between 0700 and 1900, and $0.40 p/m calls between 1900 and 0700. Between 2100 and 0700 you can call any Australian mobile phone for $0.01 per minute for the first 15 minutes. SMS costs $0.25 per message. Full-time students get a 50% discount on SMS at night-time.
All Telstra prepaid packages have a $0.20 connection fee on phone calls.
For more info:
Telstra prepaid rates
Communic8 (Pre-paid Plus)
Optus
With Optus, you can make calls within Australia for $0.74 per minute. Additionally, each call attracts a $0.25 connection fee (flagfall). You can text for $0.25 per message.
Signing up for Optus prepaid, you get to choose between two discount options:
If you go for Free Calls Anytime you can make free calls to other Optus prepaid subscribers all day and night. The number of free minutes you get to call for is determined by the amount of dollars you put into your call credit each time. Buying a $30 recharge card, you get 300 minutes of free talking, while a $50 card gives you 500 minutes free.
The other discount option is called 30 for 10 night. If you select this, you pay $0.30 for 10 minutes of calling to any mobile in Australia between 2000 and 0700.
For more information:
Optus prepaid rates
Virgin Mobile
Virgin Mobile's prepaid plan is pretty straight-forward. You pay $0.56 per minute plus a connection fee of $0.20 for calls. Texting will cost you $0.20 per message. Texting to another Virgin mobile costs $0.05 per message.
Worth noting is a sneaky little $0.20 fee everytime you call to check your prepaid balance. Also, there is a monthly minimum spending limit of $15.
For more info:
Virgin prepaid rates
Vodafone
Vodafone has a tricky setup when it comes to prepaid subscriptions. However, it turns out to be possibly the best offer on the market.
Vodafone's prepay plan is called Red Sim Prepaid. You get discounted calls and text messages depending on how much you recharge your prepay account. The standard rates are $0.60 per minute for calls, and $0.25 per text message.
Each time you put money into your prepaid account, you can choose between three different rebate plans.
The first is simply called 365 days. With this plan, you text and talk for the standard rates I mentioned above - but you have one year to spend whatever credit you have in your prepay account.
With Free TXT You get free text-messages every time you recharge your account. If you put $30 in, you can send 60 free messages. For a $50 recharge, you get 120 free texts while a $100 recharge gives you 360 free SMSs. If you're loaded, you can put $200 in and get a massive 1200 free texts. Calls cost you $0.60 per minute. Once you've spent all your free texts, you can keep on messaging for $0.25 per SMS.
The Great Call Rates plan gives you cheaper calls and $0.25 text messages. Putting in $30 gives you $0.40 per-minute calls. A $50 recharge takes the minute price down to $0.30. With a $100 top-up you get $0.25 p/m calls, while $200 gives you $0.20 p/m talk time.
With the Free TXT and Great Call Rates plans, you can make calls for $0.20 per talk to other Vodafone mobiles. A $30 recharge gives you 100 minutes of $0.20 Vodafone to Vodafone calls, while $50 gives you 200 minutes. Put in $100, and you get 450 minutes, while $200 gives you 1000 minutes. Your 20-cent calls can be as long as you like, as long as you stay within the free minutes. Once you deplete your free time, you'll be charged according to the standard call rate.
Recharges on the Free TXT and Great Call Rates plans are valid for two months only. However, any unused free texts and Vodafone to Vodafone minutes can be rolled over when you recharge within two months. This means that if you, for example, have 50 free texts left after two months, these will be added to your new batch of free texts when you recharge.
For more info:
Vodafone prepaid rates
So...
This was just a quick run-down of some prepaid mobile services in Australia. Which plan is best all depends on your needs and your friends. Say all your friends are on Virgin Mobile and you text a lot, it could be a good idea to go for Virgin! Same, if your friends are all on Optus, you can make cheap calls to them all day long! However, overall it seems Vodafone has the best offer!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Winterbreak and new weblog…
The winterbreak is finally here! I'm all done for this semester!!! Also, Maria and I have decided to start our own weblog together! It should be live within a week or so, hopefully. I'm in the middle of designing it as we speak!
After a rather crazy couple of months with seemingly never-ending assignments, I'm finally done for the semester! Ahead of me, 36 days of no worries mate!!! :o)
Now I just have one final semester to go before I'm finished with my Bachelor of Journalism. But I'll stay in UQ... I'm aiming to do a Master of Commerce (Accounting and Finance) the next couple of years!
Blog
Also, Maria and I have decided to start our own weblog together! When that blog goes live, I'll probably start posting most of my personal entries on that site instead. I'm currently working on the design, and we should be up and hopping in about a week!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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I’M ENGAGED!!!
I PROPOSED TO MY BEAUTIFUL GIRLFRIEND, MARIA, ON APRIL 26TH... SHE ACCEPTED, AND I'M MARRYING HER AFTER WE GRADUATE UNI!!! :o)))
Sorry it's taken so long to put news up here, but I haven't had a moment off for the last couple of weeks! Things have been fairly busy here!
But yes, back to Maria...
I met her at karate in August 2002, we became a couple about two weeks later - August 18th - and have stuck together since!
I Love her so much!!! And now we're engaged!!!
Our plan is to get married in Australia and stay here for a while, and then - after a few years - move to Norway for some time!
To my friends in Norway, who might wonder when you'll get to meet Maria... I'm afraid it'll be a little while yet... We plan to visit Norway together during the summer in one year! But feel free to drop by me here... I'm in Durham Street in St Lucia!!! :o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Essays and travel
So tired now... Had two essays due today... Finished them this morning! And, by the way, I'm going to Hong Kong at the end of the year!!!
The two essays were for my "Contemporary Issues in Asia" and "Foreign Policies of Major Powers" courses... Of course, I've had about a month and a half to finish them up, but I sat up until 0430 this morning to finish them off... Yeah, it's that time of the year again! :p
My Asia-essay turned out pretty well, I think; but my foreign policy essay was not so good... Luckily that one is just worth 10% of my grade for that course!
Travel
Also, I have booked plane tickets for my Christmas break in Norway. My flatmate and I will be stopping over in Hong Kong for about four days on the way home! Should give us a bit of time to see some sights!
The return trip hasn't been sorted out yet, though. My parents are coming with me to visit here in Brisbane - which will be good! We're looking into a little stop-over in Singapore, and maybe a trip to New Zealand while they're here! But that's not until January 2005 - lots of time to worry about that! :o)
I'd be very happy if someone leaves some suggestions about what to see and where to go andstay in Hong Kong, Singapore and/or New Zealand! Just use the comments box at the end of the article! Thanks in advance! :o)
I'm off now to help my little girlfriend on her engineering assignment... That is, I'll help by providing moral support! She's making the concept design for a lunar base! It's quite cool!
Drop me a line...
Sorry there hasn't been much activity here lately... Maybe I'll get better at posting articles here some day?! :p
But hey... Leave me comments! How are things in Norway? Oh, and use the small-talk forum at the top right of the front page!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Aussie news #1
Immigration minister says school children called her "racist pig" and foreign minister scores 'own goal' on Iraq.
Here the other day, I got a little idea... You see, Australia doesn't make headlines around the world very often. So I've decided to do an occasional summary of the "important" Australian news as I see them. Just so that you guys can get a little idea of what is happening here on this island, far, far away from everyone else! Here goes:
Minister called racist pig by kids
According to The Age, Australian immigration minister Amanda Vanstone said primary-school kids have called her a "racist pig". Vanstone said she received several letters in which the senders called her racist and drew pictures of little pigs.
"I think how dare these teachers teach the kids that their country is racist and unwelcoming when we are a world leader and they should be teaching the kids to be proud of what their country is doing," she said.
Marius says: I mean, yeah... Why wouldn't they be proud of Australia's immigration policies? The Tampa incident, when the Australian government in its wisdom decided to send more than 400 refugees off to Nauru - a bankrupted country - for two years, was really something... Not to mention how the parliament just excises islands from the Australian immigration zone whenever refugees try to reach the country by boat - stripping them of all rights to seek asylum here! But seriously... Shame on the kids for allegedly calling the minister a racist pig!
Iraqi own goal
Source: The Australian
Australian defence minister Robert Hill today said he was certain there are "no weapons of mass destruction [in Iraq] and there is no dictator that will use them against his own people or his neighbours". Hill made the comment as he hinted the government might withdraw the remaining Australian forces from Iraq in the next few months.
His statement - undermining the Australian government's argument for joining the war against Iraq in the first place - was obviously not a popular one in cabinet circles. A few hours later, defence minister Hill attempted to clarify his previous comment thus: "A comment I made today that with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein we can be confident there are no weapons of mass destruction [was] related to the removal of a threat rather than a judgment on whether such weapons might still be found."
Marius says: Wouldn't it have been easier just to say that they wanted to throw out Saddam for humanitarian reasons? The guy killed more than 300.000 Iraqis during his reign, and used chemical weapons on his own people. But then, I guess, the US/UK/Australia would have had to take out North Korea's leadership as well... Which would be a somewhat bigger challenge!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Chilling in Noosa
My girlfriend Maria turned 21 a couple of weeks ago... I got her a quick getaway to Noosa as a little gift!
Noosa, with its population of 37.000, is about 140 kilometeres north of Brisbane by car. It is the "capital" of the Sunshine Coast - a coastline often overshadowed by the more famous and commercialized Gold Coast. Nevertheless, heaps of people come to Noosa for a little vacation each year... So did Maria and I!
On February 18 - which also was the day Maria and I had been a couple for a year and a half - we hopped on the train to Noosa. That just got us as far as Nambour... From there we had to take a Trainlink Bus to Noosa Heads.
The journey took about 3 hours - which is a long time to be rotting onboard citytrains and buses that are completely void of any facilities whatsoever. But it was worth it! Getting out of Brisbane - together with Maria - for a couple of days during one of the warmest February weeks here in 100 years was just beautiful! You see, Noosa Heads is sticking out from the mainland like a miniature peninsula of sorts, so the seabreeze kept things nice and cool... Or at least, cooler than in Brisbane.
We stayed at Mirvac's Sebel Resort - not your typical students-on-the-run kind of hotel. The resort was about 40 meters from the beach and right in the middle of Noosa Heads's "famous" Hastings Street. Our suite was larger than my new appartment here in Brisbane, the kitchen was just beautiful and the bathroom must have been about three times the size of my own bedroom. Coupling that with air-conditioning and a spa, the stage was set for some serious relaxation.
Thus, our three days in Noosa were spent lazing around. The beach was really nice (for swimming and sunbathing), and the hotel pool wasn't too shabby either, so the furthest away from the beach (and the hotel) we ever got during our stay, was our little 2-kilometer walk into the national park. There were some serious scenic views in there, so I'd love to come back later with my camera and explore the entire area. Supposedly, you can get really close to Koalas there! However, the closest brush we had with wildlife in the national park, was an encounter with a Goanna - a very, very long lizzard-thing that crossed the walking path and crawled into a palm tree.
We had a really good (and far too short) stay in Noosa... It did wonders for my stress levels, so now I'm all ready for uni to start in a couple of days. And for anyone wondering whether Noosa might be worth a visit, check out the photos on the right and see for yourself. Two thumbs up from me! :o)
Noosa links
- [url=http://www.tourismnoosa.com.au]http://www.tourismnoosa.com.au[/url]
- [url=http://www.noosaeguide.com]http://www.noosaeguide.com[/url]
- [url=http://www.noosa.qld.gov.au/content/touristinfo.html]http://www.noosa.qld.gov.au/content/touristinfo.html[/url]
See 25 photos in this story's gallery
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Hotter than hell
Brisbane was hit by near record-breaking heat today. The quicksilver peaked into the 40s around mid-day!
With a maximum temperature of 40.8 degrees, today was among the warmest February days in 100 years. The current record is 40.9 degrees and was set on February 21, 1925 - 79 years ago to the day.
Most people here spent the day in airconditioned houses or in front of big fans - or in desperate search for some cool air in shopping centers. The need for a cooling down was so great that some Brisbane suburbs saw temporary blackouts and water outages.
Maria and I spent the whole day walking around the shopping center at Indooroopilly - neither of us has airconditioning at our places. It was nice and cool at the shopping center, and it was really good to escape the startling heat outside. The only flipside was that thousands of others had the same idea as us. It was really hard to find a place to sit at all, and the movie theater (which has 16 cinemas) was filled to the rim. There were massive lines in front of the ticket booths and a 50 meter queue to get into the actual cinemas. We saw "Mona Lisa Smile" - a movie I wouldn't expect to find at the top of the box-office charts... But even the 1pm show, which we went to, was filled to the last seat!
The heat is forecast to last until Tuesday, when evening thunderstorms are set to cool things off a bit. Tomorrow we are looking at another scorcher - 39 degrees - while Monday is forecast to hit 36C. Tuesday will be rather chilly - just 31 degrees! :p
Aye... Send me some Norwegian snow!!! :o) How is the winter going back home???
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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So hot…
And I'm not talking about women...
The last week has been so unbelievably warm its not even funny... And it's going to get worse! Today we had 36 degrees and 85-90% relative air humidity in Brisbane.
Tomorrow they expect a bit of relief with just 30-ish degrees, but it'll heat up again towards the weekend. The Bureau of Meteorology expects close to 40 degrees celcius on Friday.
It's so hot here, even Australians (who tend to love their country and the climate here) want to migrate to Norway for some cold air.
With all the heat and humid air, I'm basically spending the days in front of big fans, in air conditioned shopping centres or in the shower... Any sort of physical activity... Well, just imagine! :p
Luckily, I'll be getting away from the big city for a couple of days. My little girlfriend, Maria, turned 21 last Saturday - and we have been together for a year and a half on Wednesday - so I'm taking her to Noosa for a couple of days to celebrate. And get this... There's a pool at the hotel, a huge beach across the street and A/C in the room! Take that, heat!!!
Aye... I miss Norway! (Hmmm... The heat must be getting to me! :p)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Touchdown Australia
I'm back in Brisbane now! Quite different to Norwegian winter!
After a 40-hour journey (train from Kristiansand to Oslo, and plane from Oslo via Amsterdam and Singapore to Brisbane) I'm finally back in Oz!
It's really great! I got to see my girlfriend Maria again for the first time in two months. And Oddbjorn and I put in an application for an appartment (quite nice one actually) just a ten-minute walk from UQ. I really hope we get that unit, because that would mean no more waiting for City Cats that are 20 minutes late just to get to uni!
For all of you back in Norway, I just wish to take this opportunity to remind you that it's mid-summer here right now - meaning 25-35 degrees in the daytime and balmy 20-degree nights!
Hee hee... :o)
I'll come back later with more substantial updates. Right now I have to get back to attending to my jet-lag!
How are things back home, everyone?
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Leaving, on a jet-plane…
...don't know when I'll be back again!
Or actually... I'll be back in Norway in December for yet another summer break! But now, I'm off to Australia!
In just 9 hours, after a bit of sleep, I'm hopping on the train to Oslo and the airport there. It'll be a hefty journey - 39 hours from the train leaves Kristiansand till the plane touches down in Brisbane.
To all my family and friends in Norway, it was great seeing all of you again. Can't wait till the next time! And to my girlfriend and all my friends in Brisbane, I'm really looking forward to seeing you guys again! (Anyone up for a party? ;o)
Well, there'll be a new update - hopefully with more pics from my break here in Norway - when I'm all settled in back in Brisbane. Just remember, I'm going to be off house-hunting for a few days now, so it might be a little while before anything happens here! But feel free to use the comment boxes to leave me little hellos!
:o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Norway - Australia, the travel route
I'm going back to Brisbane in a few weeks. Here's my itinerary! Anyone going back at the same time? :o)
Depart Oslo: 1615 (02-FEB-04)
Arrive Amsterdam: 1815 (02-FEB-04)
Depart Amsterdam: 2025 (02-FEB-04)
Arrive Singapore: 1535 (03-FEB-04)
Depart Singapore: 2115 (03-FEB-04)
Arrive Brisbane: 0640 (04-FEB-04)
The reception committee is hereby notified! :p
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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New layout for koalaplanet.org
I've made some changes and updates to koalaplanet.org. Most importantly, the layout is new and you can comment on all the entries...
To make Koalaplanet a little more interactive, I've set up a commenting system to get feedback and (hopefully) some discussion going on the website.
Please, everyone... FEEL FREE TO USE THE COMMENTING FEATURE!!! You view and add comments by clicking the link at the end of each article or weblog entry. I promise I'll try to keep on top of answering your comments and input as quickly as possible!
Also, any entry photos have been moved to the right-hand side and now feature as thumbnails that will open a popup window. If, for some reason, you have trouble viewing the popup photos, click the fix-link at the top of the photo column. At the moment, you have to click the fix-link for each entry you're viewing, but I'm working on a better solution. (I need to learn cookies!)
Knowing me, I'll probably come back with yet another layout sometime during the next few months... I want to change the look of the site a little... But for now: Enjoy!
And again... Please comment!!! It doesn't have to be comments about the articles or anything... Just any thoughts or a little hello or whatever, really! (Just keep it nice, and in English or Norwegian! ;o)
Oh... And I'll try to update the site a little more often now!!!
Cheers!
:Marius
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Spring has sprung
And Australia's wildlife is out manhunting once again... Even the birds want a piece of you!
"[Australia] has more things that will kill you than anywhere else", writes Bill Bryson in his book Down Under...
Of the world's ten most poisonous snakes, all are Australian. Five of its creatures - the funnel-web spider, box jellyfish, blue-ringed octopus, paralysis tick and stonefish - are the most lethal of their type in the world. This is a country where even the fluffiest caterpillars can lay you out with a toxic nip, where seashells will not just sting you but actually sometimes go for you. - Bryson, Bill (2000) Down Under
Bill forgot something... The magpies!
Magpies are crow-like, native Australian birds... And in keeping with good-old Aussie zoological traditions, they will kill you if they get a chance! At least during nesting season - August through October. During those months, the magpies go a bit spacko and defend their territory from any and all intruders.
Walking around Brisbane - or most Australian urbanized areas for that sake - you may well observe otherwise normal people running, crouching, screaming or yelling for no apparent reason... That is, until you become aware of a rapidly passing bird-like shadow (magpies tend to attack from behind, from the direction of the sun), hear an evil screech and feel an unusual kind of sensation somewhere on your head... You are now under attack by a daddy-magpie and will find yourself joining the club of crouching, running, screaming pedestrian.
The magpie attacks can be a huge problem... Especially if you happen to neighbour a nest! (That happened to me last year, and I got attacked at least five times! Nerve wrecking!) So in their wisdom, state governments and other organizations set up websites and run TV ads on how to survive the magpie season. (Check the link section at the end of the article!)
The most common advice is to wear a hat and sunglasses, and possibly bring an umbrella. Moreover, cyclists are advised to step off their bikes if under attack, as many magpie related injuries occur when bikers do acrobatic, often aerial stunts to get out of harm's way.
Researchers even do studies on magpie attacks and all the interesting injuries that result. A report by Renate Kreisfeld shows 20 per cent of magpie injuries end with hospitalization of the victims. The most affected body part is the eye (20.3 per cent of cases).
Interestingly, according to the report, the most common type of injuries is fractures sustained when falling of a bike (or even a horse) or hitting trees!
But why in the world should anyone complain? After all, magpies are nature and nature is good... At least, that's what the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency says:
Learning to live with magpies can be rewarding. You can observe local magpies, study their behaviour, and listen to their songs. We share the same living space. Learning to live together is an important step towards building a better living environment. - Environmental Protection Agency
I just wish the "learning to live together" part went for magpies as well! :o)
Let me just put it this way... Australia is a very interesting country, and you never get too city slick... There is always some wildlife around, waiting to kill you! In the words of Bill Bryson:
Pick up an innocuous coneshell from a Queensland beach, as innocent tourists are all too wont to do, and you will discover that the little fellow inside is not just astoundingly swift and testy, but exceedingly venomous. If you are not stung or pronged to death in some unexpected manner, you may be fatally chomped by sharks or crocodiles, or carried helplessly out to sea by irreststible currents, or left to stagger to an unhappy death in the baking outback. It's a tough place.
Magpie links:
-Report on magpie injuries
-Safe cycling in magpie country
-Environmental Protection Agency
-ABC radio on magpies (Listen to the audio!)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Port Douglas
Hey all! Just thought I'd drop an entry on my webpage... Sitting on internet cafe in Port Douglas in tropical north Queensland!
We've been driving here from Brisbane... It's a 2000km drive, and it's as far north as we'll go on our little road trip.
So far we've stopped over in Airlie Beach, Townsville and Cairns... It's all been very nice, except for our stay in Cairns! The backpackers we stayed at there was more like a construction site, so we woke up to the sound of jackhammers and power drills 7am every morning! :s
The winters here north are so much nicer than in Brisbane! We have around 25-30 degrees C in the daytime, and fairly warm evenings!
Well... Gotta go now... Internet is expensive as crap here! Write more when I'm back!
Adieu!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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WINTER BREAK!
It's all over!
The craziest semester I have ever been put through is finally over! I am officially on winter break! So much time, so little to do! It's beautiful, but a little unusual and confusing!
I had my journalism-law exam at 8am this morning. It took me 30 minutes to get through it, but they wouldn't let me out until 10 minutes later... It's some rule they have so that oversleepers can still take the exam even though they're half an hour late!
I spent the rest of the day with Maria! We basically toddled around in the city and South Bank and then collapsed on the couch in front of the TV while pondering what to do with all the spare time.
Well... I'm going to bed now! Good night, everyone!
Oh... And happy birthday (22), Martin!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Valutauflaks
I januar var vi australiastudenter og glade lånekassekunder griseheldige med valutakursen. Fullt så gunstig blir det ikke neste semester!
Sentralbanksjef Svein Gjedrem har nemlig gått til rentekrig mot høy kronekurs. Låntakerne jubler og norske bedriftseiere tenker umiddelbart på gull og grønne skoger, økt eksport og digre overskudd.
På grunn av den lave renten har den norske krona blitt svekket med cirka 25% i forhold til den australske dollaren det siste halvåret.
Tilbake i støvføyken ligger norske utenlandsstudenter med tanker om knekkebrød, hurtignudler og tiggerbrev. For eksempel får vi som studerer i Australia, $3000 mindre å rutte med neste semester!
Og med utsikter til laveste rente i moderne tid i Norge, ser det ikke ut til at kronekursen kommer til å gå utenlandsstudentenes vei igjen i nærmeste fremtid.
Dermed er det bare for oss her under å tenke valutataktisk, rekalkulere budsjetter og håpe på forbigående høyere rente (som selvfølgelig bør ned mot 0% igjen så snart vi skal begynne å betale studielånet tilbake) og kronekurs!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Just hours to go!
I'm less than 10 hours away from being over and done with this semester!
It's bedtime now for little examinees!
Just thought I'd tell you all to wish me luck! My last exam is at 8am! I'm ready, I think... But I could use a bit of good-luck thoughts!
Well... Good night!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Almost there…
Winter break is less than 48 hours away...
My last exam, Journalism Law, is at Saturday 8am!
I'm so looking forward to finishing this semester... It's been rather crazy! It started out all nice, but then everything came crashing down... Just like it has every time! Hopefully I learnt something this time at least!
It'll be really nice with a little one-month winter break now. I feel I deserve it! There will be spending time with my girlfriend, catching up on movies I haven't seen yet, and a two-week road-trip up north to Cairns together with Obi, Ross and Rob...
State of Origin
Maria and Kate were over yesterday to watch the State of Origin. It's an annual three-game rugby series between Queensland and New South Wales. NSW hammered QLD for the second game in a row and won the Origin! I'm told to go for New South Wales and be happy they won and not like Queensland (for some reason I'm yet to understand). ;p
But anyways... It was a nice little break from studies! Speaking of which... Back to the books now! Must get through half my journo law course in two days... Should be right though: it's a multiple-choice exam!
Later!
:o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Two down and Big Brother
Just one more exam to go!
I had my International relations exam today. Hopefully I didn't do too bad!
When I entered the examination room this morning at 8am, I didn't have too high hopes. I didn't start studying for this one until a couple of days ago. As a result, I spent most of last night preparing and I only got 1.5 hours of sleep! :s
Luckily, my guessing as to what the exam questions would be wasn't too bad, so I'll probably pass the course at least! The final grade won't be too good though!
No crossing
The bus station by the Cultural Centre and South Bank has camera surveillance. But it seems the cameras are not there to prevent criminality. I got told off by the surveillance guy (for the second time) for crossing the busway outside the pedestrian crossing.
Basically, what happened was that I crossed because there were no moving buses in sight. Big brother didn't like that. So he got on the public announcement system so that everybody could hear it and yelled at me (and another guy who crossed at the same time)! But hey... It was deserved I suppose! :p
Ten months
And one more thing... Just thought I should mention that Maria and I have been together for ten months today!
See 3 photos in this story's gallery
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Exam and South Bank photos
I nailed the investigative journalism exam (I hope)! Less than 48 hours till next one!
I'm pretty happy, considering I spent the majority of my revision period not revising! But now I'll have to hammer for my International Relations exam. It'll be a big bad one!
South Bank
Yesterday, I went for a walk in South Bank... I should have been studying, I know... But hey, I got some photos at least! Take a look!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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BBQ Good
For once, it didn't rain!
Here are the photos!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Top-notch security… not! ;)
Read me! Here.. a diary entry away from the usual Marius "complain, complain" drool! .. Kidding. I'm sure he's cool... in his own "special" way. Hmm.. I should be nice (in sight: large, shiny knife!) Oooops!!
So, I've broken into Marius' site... ok, ok.. maybe not.. he's so kindly let me contribute to his diary on the condition that I delete everything I've typed and will type before this entry is over! No fun, eh? What a spoil sport? Aye!
Anyways, here I am. I'm pretty sure you guys haven't logged on just to read the entries - not that they're not fantastic, pants-grippin' stuff, but if you're after an "invasion of privacy" thrill, check out opendiary.com (some of those guys are just plain WEIRD!!) .. ! 
Seriously though, young Marius Askildsen has some really neat and handy things on his website! You should check it out! Talented guy! Drop him a line if you like! He's a friendly guy and always willing to help out! Take care ya'all!
Maria!
PS. All complaints can be directed to Marius at feedback@koalaplanet.org.
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Billig til Australia
Nå koster det lite å holde kontakten med oss her i Australia!
På nettstedet Telefonkort.net kan man kjøpe ringetid for under halvparten av Telenors priser.
Det billigste telefonkortet, EuroCity (sist jeg sjekket), gir 550 minutters ringetid til Australia for 89 kroner. Eneste ulempen er at kortet går ut 60 dager etter første samtale.
Med Yellow får man 500 minutter for 94 kroner. Til gjengjeld varer dette kortet i tre måneder fra første bruk.
Gå til denne siden for å sammenligne priser på alle kortene. Eventuelt, les mer hos Dagbladet!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Exam period
The assignment nightmare is over! I've never been happier to be in the middle of an exam period!
First off... This webpage will probably be updated a bit more frequently now! I'm not busy 24-7 anymore!
And of course, here is the traditional bi-annual apology to family and friends in Norway and elsewhere... I haven't been good at keeping in touch! Sorry! But you'll see the reason just below!
This semester has been crazy! So unbelievably many assignments! Most of them were worth only 15%, but they took so long to finish...
Anyways... After more than a few all-night study session, I'm all done! Just three exams to go! I'm really happy about that!
My exams are as follows:
- 16-JUN, Investigative Journalism
- 18-JUN, International Relations
- 28-JUN, Journalism Law
And after the exams... Road-trip!!! We're planning a two-week Tour de Queensland by car! Should be good! Planning to get as far north as Cairns! I'll tell more about that later!
Now... Must study!
Au revoir!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Pengemangel?
Nå kan du søke studielån på internett!
Torsdag åpnet Lånekassen nettsøknaden for 2003-2004.
Utenlandsstudenter som allerede har påbegynt utdanningen slipper nå den heller trege, og noen ganger usikre, postgangen til Norge.
Men svaret lar fortsatt vente på seg i to uker...
Du finner nettsøknaden her:
Lånekassens nettsøknad
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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I can see light…
...at the end of the tunnel!
The bulk of my assignments are handed in now! I just have my international-relations essay and two essays for journalism ethics and law to go! Yay!
But freakin h***... When will I ever learn to start working the second week of the semester? It would make my life so much easier! ;o)
And just to make things worse... The weather is beautiful these days... Close to 25 degrees C and sunshine all day long!
Not much really
As perusual, nothing big or exciting is happening! Nothing much anyway! I'm looking forward to the exam period... It'll be totally relaxing compared to all of this! ;p
Oh... 17-MAY coming up soon! It's the Norwegian national day, and the celebration in Brisbane is pretty big! It'll be good to get a day completely free from studying and stuff! Yay!
Back to essay again... Weeee!!!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Study and BBQ gone bad
Desperately clinging to the study plan. And BBQ-break went bad! Again!
Study
I'm still on schedule, studywise... I'm not ahead anymore though! Things are moving a bit slowly at the moment! The balance sheet analysis (fun all day long) is taking up quite a bit of time and more than a couple of IQ points. In other words, there's not much left for my ethics-exam studying.
That exam is coming up on 2-MAY, by the way!
Deja Vu
I went to a BBQ yesterday... 3pm! Weather forecast for 3pm: thunderstorms. But the weatherperson (Can't have any sexist pig language here! ;P ) was wrong! No thunderstorms! But it did start raining just after we had finished eating. It more than rained, actually... It piss poured! But who would expect anything else? (Ross is a good BBQ-planner! ;P ) This BBQing-while-weather-is-bad thing is turning in to a tradition!
Back to books! Aaaargh... Help me!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Mid-semester break???
Yeah RIGHT!!!
Some people call this week mid-semester break. I call it mid-semester HELL!
This is the week where I'm supposed to catch up on all the work I didn't do (or couldn't do, due to cluelessness) during the first couple of weeks of the semester.
I'm currently working on three assignments that are due 9-MAY. And they're all for the same course! I tells ya... There's evil at work here!
I have deviced an assignment schedule, and I'm staying ahead of it... Just barely! I'll be working constantly for exactly one month and three days from today according to my plan! Studying for exams come in addition. Oh dear!
Well well... Good thing though: No lectures to disturb my work this week!
And now... Bedtime!
Nite!
:o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Oh so much work
Heaps and heaps... But I'm coping! I guess!
Yes, it's a long time since my little blog has been updated... I am rather busy these days (or should I say months)?!
I have far too many assignments and too much reading to do! Right now I'm working on stuff that is due in one month, just so that I'll be able to get done all the other stuff that is due at the same time! Very bad!
But like I said... I'm coping! Doing pretty well, and the assignments seem to be a bit quicker to complete than I originally thought!
Anyways... Just wanted to say happy Easter everyone!
I shall be back soon!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Where do YOU want to pee today?
Planning to go out??? Figure you'll need to take a leak underways? Fear no more! The Australian Department of Health and Ageing has the tool you need...
Planning to go out??? Figure you'll need to take a leak underways? Fear no more! The Australian Department of Health and Ageing has the tool you need...
It's the NATIONAL TOILET MAP!!! WHAT THE...???
The map identifies about 13.000 public toilets across Australia, according to the web-site. And for each toilet you can access useful information about the toilet's opening hours and whether it's for girls or guys, or maybe even both.
The Health Department says on the web-page that the toilet map can be useful in planning trips and holidays, and even little shopping sprees in the city.
My life got so much easier, all of a sudden!
You can plan your next holiday in Australia at http://www.toiletmap.gov.au.
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Gode ideer? Hjelp meg!
Har du tips eller ideer til hva som bør dukke opp på siden her? Send meg en mail da vel!
Neida... Jeg har ikke gått helt tom for ideer til nye artikler og sånt... Men hvis du har noen spørsmål angående det å bo og/eller studere i Australia, send meg en mail så skal jeg få laget en artikkel så fort som mulig!
Adressen er feedback@koalaplanet.org
Og hvis du vet om happenings eller ting og tang som vil være av interesse for oss nordmenn i Australia (og særlig Brisbane/Gold Coast), vil jeg gjerne høre om det!
Bilder
Har du bilder fra Australia eller av (student)livet her og vil la meg legge dem ut på koalaplanet.org! Send dem til meg!
Husk å legge ved navnet ditt og en eventuell bildebeskrivelse!
Hvorfor???
Jeg går og pusler med tanken om å bygge ut koalaplanet.org litt... Blant annet med stort fotoalbum og mailingliste og sånn! Men man kan ikke bare utvide sånn helt uten å ha noe å utvide med! Så ideer, spørsmål, bilder etc. er hjertelig velkomne!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Uni starts tomorrow!
The summer break is over! Uni starts tomorrow!
Another semester is kicking off! And it seems like this will be a rather nice semester... Surely there will be copious amounts of complaining from my side once things start getting heavy and the essays and projects are due, three at the same time... But hey... I'm allowed to complain, am I not? :p
It seems I'll have just 9,5 contact hours per week (lectures and tutorials). Two of my lectures are clashing, so I'll have to get through one of my courses by listening to audio recordings and going to tutorials and copying notes off of friends! Should be able to do it though!
Also, the courses seem pretty interesting! I have International Relations, which is more or less my favorite thing in the news! And Investigative Journalism doesn't seem to be such a bad course either! Best of all, I get a break from having to hand in newsstories all the time! Very nice!
Anyways... I better head off to bed now! Gotta put in a good night's sleep before I head over to uni at around 1500 hours! :o)
Good night everyone!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Ikke like enkelt å være syk for alle!
Avtalen mellom Folketrygden og Mayne Health om dekning av utgifter ved legebesøk gjelder ikke i hele Australia!
For noen uker ble det meldt at norske studenter i Australia får det mye lettere på helsefronten. En avtale mellom Mayne Health og Folketrygdkontoret for utenlandssaker gjør at studentene slipper med å betale egenandel ved legebesøk og slikt. Det stemmer... Men ikke helt!
I følge ANSA Nytt er studenter i South Australia og Tasmania ikke omfattet av avtalen og må klare seg på egenhånd, slik som før. Mayne Health opererer nemlig ikke i disse to statene.
Studentene i disse to statene må dekke alle utgifter ved legebesøket selv, for deretter å søke om refusjon fra Folketrygdkontoret for utenlandssaker.
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Guide til et sted å bo
Det er veldig lett å skaffe seg sted å bo i Brisbane! Her er noen tips for å gjøre det enda lettere!
Det finnes et utall med utleieagenter (real-estates) i Brisbane (og alle andre store australske byer). Bruk dem! De er ditt sikreste kort når det gjelder å finne plass å bo.
Backpacker
Det anbefales på det sterkeste å ikke leie hus/leilighet usett. Ikke la deg friste av lovnader om gull og grønne skoger før du faktisk har sett stedet med dine egne øyne!
Du bør heller booke rom på backpackerhotell den første uka du er her og bruke dette som base for boligjakten din. Og ikke bekymre deg for utgiftene! Det skal ikke ta deg mange dagene å finne en bra plass å bo, og backpackers er billig!
Attester
For å bedre sjansen til å få akkurat den leiligheten du vil ha, tenk på følgende:
Utleierene vil gjerne vite at du er påliteligheten selv! Derfor: har du attester fra tidligere husverter, få dem oversatt til engelsk og ta dem med på boligjakten!
Du bør også avtale med tidligere husverter (evt. arbeidsgivere eller foreldre etc.) å bruke dem som referanser. Utleieagentene står ikke tilbake for å ringe Norge for å sjekke at du er så snill og grei som du utgir deg for!
Økonomi
Økonomi teller også! Ta med deg brevet du fikk fra Lånekassen som bekrefter (på engelsk) at du får X kroner i støtte per år. Det teller mye!
Og hvis du har tid, opprett australsk konto og overfør pengene dine dit! Agentene blir veldig imponert dersom du kan vise frem kontoutskrift med titusenvis av dollar på!
Til slutt... Gi klart uttrykk for at du er norsk! Vi nordmenn er (fremdeles) rimelig populære i Brisbane! Agentene vet at vi kan betale for oss!
Det var egentlig alt du virkelig trenger å vite! Lykke til med boligjakten!
Forvirret?
Hvis du er forvirret, sjekk ut denne siden hos RTA. De gir svar på de mer formelle sidene ved å leie bosted i Queensland. Eventuelt send meg en e-post!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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I’m baaack!
Everyone... I'm back in Australia again... Finally!
I mean... Norway was nice! Nice and cold... And with lots of snow! And I really don't mind dressing up all warm and snug to go outdoors! But still...
It's so nice to be able to go outside without freezing my nose off!
Moving
Today was the first really nice day since I got here, four days ago... Weatherwise that is! We've had showers and about 25 degrees for a few days now!
Today, however, we had sunshine and around 30 degrees... Which makes a 45-degree-centigrades difference to Kristiansand the day I left! (We had -15-ish that day!)
I helped my girlfriend, Maria, moving house today! She's moving "across town"! :o( I'll cope though! No worries! I got a little sunburn... The UV-rays chewed through my 30+ sunscreen! Nothing serious though!
Yay
Everyone... I'm feeling all great! No trace of kissing disease anymore, and I'm even over the little cold I caught just before leaving Norway!
Yay me!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Leaving tomorrow!
I'm hopping on the train to Oslo tomorrow, Friday! OZ, here I come!
At last I'm heading back to Brisbane. First leg of my trip is Kristiansand - Oslo, tomorrow! I'm spending one night at a friend's and then one night at Gardermoen B&B... My plane leaves Sunday morning at 0650! (YUCK! Early!)
Now... Frantically packing my bags!
Back soon! :o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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All well!
Four days to go before I leave Kristiansand...
I'll meet up with Obi, my flatmate, in Oslo and then we're off to Brisbane 2-FEB! It'll be great! Can't really wait to get back there! Sun and summer and girlfriend and all that is good!
Of course, Norway is also good... And I'd like to stay here for a while longer, just to hang out with friends and stuff! Didn't really get a chance to do that, seeing how I was down with glandular fever from the start of my summer break till right now today!
There'll be a next time though!!
Nothing much happening in my life right now! Putting the final touch on a website I'm designing for a local company. Fixing some old photos... Hanging out with friends!
Now is bedtime anyway!
Nightie!!! :o)
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Ten days till OZ
I'll be back in Australia in 10 days! And I'm pretty much over the mono!
I leave Kristiansand 31-JAN and then Oslo 2-FEB. I'll have stop overs in Frankfurt (possibly the most boring airport ever), and Singapore. 3-JAN at 2015, I should be in Brisbane!
My break here in Norway has basically been spent on having mononucleosis (glandular fever (kyssesyken)). But it seems like I'm getting over it now! That's great! I'm really sick and tired of being ill!
Well... I suppose I should head of to bed now! Time for little boys to sleep!
Good night!!!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Enklere å være syk i Australia
En avtale mellom Folketrygden og australske Mayne Health gjør det lettere for norske studenter å være syke i Australia.
I følge ANSA innebærer den nye avtalen at store regninger fra australske leger og sykehus tilhører fortiden.
Norske studenter som kan fremvise et gyldig medlemskort fra Folketrygdkontoret for utenlandssaker vil heretter slippe med å betale egenandel, akkurat som ved legebesøk i Norge.
Mayne Health vil dekke resten av utgiftene for siden å få disse refundert fra Folketrygden
Avtalen skal tre i kraft fra 28-FEB-2003. Statene Victoria og Tasmania er ikke omfattet av avtalen, da Mayne Health ikke er representert her!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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Spar på pengene
Den gunstige valutakursen gjør at vi australiastudenter sitter gunstig i det, økonomisk sett. Men dollaren kommer til å bli dyrere igjen iløpet av studietiden din...
Forhåpentligvis har du fått med deg at den australske dollaren er fantasibillig for tiden. Et studielån er plutselig verd flere tusen dollar mer enn tidligere!
Det kommer ikke alltid til å være sånn... Her kommer moderasjonstalen! :o)
Bonus
Det er aller første gang, så vidt jeg vet, at dollarkursen har duppet så lavt som 3,92 (2-JAN-2003, Norges Bank). Historien tilsier at den skal ligge rundt 4,7... Minst!
Statistikken viser at gjennomsnittlig dollarkurs de siste 22 årene har vært nesten 5,3... Siste fem årene var snittkursen 4,77, i følge Norges Bank!
Derfor: Husk å ikke se på 3,92-kursen som hverdagskost. Se den heller som en bonus - engangsutbetaling på rundt $3000 - til trengende studenter på studielån.
Overskudd
Mitt råd (og jeg lider av kanikkesparesyndromet) er å sette så mye som mulig av valutabonusen til side, til fremtidige semestere med høy dollarkurs!
Med litt uflaks kan dollaren fort vippe over 5-tallet. Og da kan det plutselig bli trange tider for nordmenn i Australia (og da er det kjekt med litt valutafortjeneste i bakhånd)!
Bare et råd, altså!
Hei nu!
Posted by Marius Berg Askildsen
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