Fuzzy’s redesigned. It’s quirky, in a good way.
I’m going to send off a bunch of files to Ofoto soon. There’s a lot of bare walls around this apartment, so I plan to remedy that by making a photowall, tiled with 6×4 inch photos and a few framed 10×8 ones. The problem I have to fix is figuring out how to attach the photos to the walls without damaging the photos. The walls are concrete, but are slightly rough so using tape is a bit dodgy. I may have to resort to blu-tack, but the thought of rolling out a whole bunch of little blu-tack blobs for each photo is not very appealing. Blu-tack also leaks oil and stains the material after a long time as well.
I loved it. Sure there are plot holes (hey, it’s a movie that screws around with time), but it was tight enough to be fairly convincing. It seems to cover slightly different ground to Minority Report which was also based on a Phillip K Dick story. The pre-crime predictions in Minority Report were a once off prediction and were changeable once you became aware of them. On the other hand, Jennings in Paycheck was not aware of his “preset future” at all, having had his memory wiped. Therefore, it was a case of where the crystal ball machine predicted his future (I don’t think that’s a spoiler, you get told that in the trailer) with 100% pinpoint accuracy, regardless of what he did. But otherwise, the two movies had really similar feels.
One of those cult classic movies that various people have been recommending me for ages. Definitely a fun watch. It’s sort of like a horror movie which has swapped out all the horror for humour, if that makes any sense. This is my BOOMSTICK!
Extra hour of sleep, but now it starts to get dark fast.
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(0)Holy shit. Ok. So I was at the Sydney Law Careers Fair at Darling Harbour today. Hundreds of law students from around Sydney flocking to a few handfuls of large law corporate firms like seagulls after a few hot chips. That’s not the interesting bit. After I’d finished my interrogations and gathering the armfuls of brochures and pens and mousepads and whatnot, I started to head for home. I’m making my way out the door when a voice calls out from the side at me, “Hey! Hi!” I turned around and got the shock of my life.
It was Anne. The softdrink marketing surveyor chick. Yes, that Anne.
“Remember me?” How could I forget? Turns out she graduated from law at UTS in 2001, took a year or two off and was now after her PLT and a job. I extricated myself from the conversation as quickly as possible and left.
After all that, you might say I should go out and buy a lottery ticket, but it’s probable that if I did, I’d get struck by a bolt of lightning on the way to the newsagency.
The Careers Fair
It was actually quite different from last night’s expo (see yesterday’s entry). Australian firms place a lot more focus on all-round achievement compared with the Hong Kong firms, which is nice to see. Not all, but still very much the majority, of firms were very friendly and approachable – notably Freehills, Blakes and AAR, but I suppose it depends which individual of those firms you get to chat to. All of the top tier firms naturally sound highly attractive. As is expected, the competition is pretty intensive for them. However, unlike other blue-ribbon industries like i-banking or consulting, most of the law firms are accepting anywhere from 15 to 30 clerks for the summer clerkship programs.
Also interesting was that no particular emphasis is placed upon a commerce background, despite them all being commercial law firms (unlike i-banking where finance is a plus). I suppose the rationale for this is that you cover commercial subjects in law school anyway, so you have some relevant background. It’s definitely good for me in that although people will look at my resume, see BIT and stereotypically think “computer guy”, it theoretically won’t matter (in my experience, recruiters tend to skip the “B” part in BIT). But ultimately recruitment for all these top tier firms reminds me of this little exchange in Starship Troopers:
Zim: I see you specifically requested transfer from Fort Cronkite to this training group…
Dizzy: Sir, I heard it was the best, sir!
Zim: It is the best… BUT WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU’RE GOOD ENOUGH??
The summer clerkship application season opens around July-August, so we’ll see how we go.
(0)It’s been a really busy session so far, haven’t been getting out very much. Can’t wait until the mid-session break in a few weeks’ time. Every session there’s always one subject that I hate, and this session it’s the compulsory jurisprudential subject – Legal Theory. Way too abstract for me. I guess I wasn’t cut out for philosophy!
Went to an International Law Careers Fair tonight at uni. A more apt title would be “Hong Kong Law Careers Fair” as all the firms there except one (Linklaters) were Hong Kong based. This was bad because I don’t speak any form of Chinese whatsoever. Language skills are something that are quite dependent on environment. Where you were born and where you grew up have a huge bearing upon what languages you pick up. Sure, you can pick up languages later on in life, but most people will only pick up fluency in one language learnt in this way. And only then if they spend some amount of time in a country that speaks that language. (Programming languages don’t count.) Do I wish I could speak another language? Sure. But it’s more a feeling of resignation than regret that I never picked up one when I was young, when the brain is geared for rapid learning.
I guess this is why I’m somewhat annoyed when relatives ask me, “Why can’t you speak Chinese?” as if I was supposed to be able to speak it by mere virtue of my race and as if I have some sort of genetic defect because I can’t. Actually, I might start replying to that with, “Why can’t you speak proper English?”
This article from The Australian looks at the high under-representation of women in information technology and engineering. Bugger, eh? But it’s nothing we didn’t already know years ago.
Figures from the Department of Education, Science and Training show females were just 25 per cent of IT students in higher education in 2002, compared to 53.8 per cent in medical studies, 56.8 per cent in law, 56.1 per cent in accounting, 51.7 per cent in dentistry and 70.4 per cent in veterinary studies. … Engineering and related technologies is another a standout poor performer, attracting a female student body of just 15.9 per cent. …
Kaylene Clayton, who last year completed her honours thesis investigating school students’ perceptions of IT and how they influenced recruitment into IT studies, programs and careers, says IT is seen as geeky, nerdy and an antisocial occupation for socially inadequate people. …
“Girls really see IT as a tool, the boys are happy to get in there and tinker, the girls just want to get in and get it done,” she says.
I would say that the perceptions have a slight ring of truth, but remain largely a misconception. It’s just a stereotype branding that’s convenient and has stuck – nursing is for women, arts is for bludgers, etc. There are plenty of IT people who don’t match the description above – take a look at a lot of the bloggers and e/n people around. Then again there are plenty of people who do (anyone remember Bence? Although even he was funny).
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12:02am (GMT +10.00) tomorrow 
