Europe and exams

July 22, 2006? That was the last time I posted? Why does that not surprise me. Blogging is fun whenever I get around to it, but during uni term there are always a million other things to think about. And it seems I only get around to blogging during exam time when I'm looking for any excuse to procrastinate!

It's currently Tuesday, and my exams are:
Thursday - Investments
Tuesday - Microeconomics
Friday - Maths
Thursday - Risk Theory (Statistics)

Once again I find myself dreading the Stat exam, but not as much as usual. You see, this year things have changed which have actually made me less of a procrastinator and more anticipatory. I may have to change the name of this blog *shock horror!*.

Over the summer holidays, my family and I took a trip to Europe (again). We last went 6 years ago, and this time went to many of the same places, yet it was different and somehow better. I guess that as you age, you grow to appreciate culture and history more and more. And since I was the official cameraman, I took some 5 hours of raw footage over the 3-week trip through Germany, Austria, Switzerland, England and Italy.

The 2-minute version is: we flew to Frankfurt and spent our first night there, then hit to road (we were on an Insight tour) to Munich. After two days there we travelled to Salzburg to celebrate Mozart's 250th birthday (my mother was over the moon) before heading to Innsbruck. After a night there we ventured to Lucerne and Zurich for New Year's (my personal highlight) and the official tour was over. It lasted 10 days.

From there we flew to London for a few days with a friend of my father's, and then the culmination of the trip was our five days in Rome. We saw the Colosseum and the Vatican along with other less well-known landmarks. It was awesome.

As I mentioned, I was the official cameraman, and so when we returned to Australia I was charged with editing the raw footage into a one-hour presentation. Some of the stuff I had to cut was painful, but the demands of an interesting documentary necessitated editing. In the end I even got to design my own opening- and closing-credit sequences (fun for me) to the music of 'Unforgettable' by Frank Sinatra.

Then I returned to Canberra - but the big change was that my sister moved with me. Yep, she's here with me studying Commerce at ANU. And she is the reason I'm actually decently prepared for my first exam on the day before the day before the exam itself. Read that again carefully: it's Tuesday, and I'm already mostly prepared for a Thursday exam. I'm shocked too.

Having a younger sister around means that I have to work. She will tick me off when I don't. So as a result I prepared a formula sheet last week, and my summary will be finished by the end of the day. What to do tomorrow? A past paper and that's it. My question: will I actually forget stuff during the time between finishing preparation and the exam itself? It's a scary thought.