things sure have changed since yesterday

A couple of weeks ago my mum brought Julian, on of my former foster kittens, home. Two weeks later, everyone's happy...except my cat Mitzie won't play with Julian because she's about 75 in human years and he's only about five, and so he's been kinda lonely. Which meant last Firday my mum went to pick up Julian's brother Max. So now we have three cats: Mitzie, 14, and Julian and Max, both eight months.

Mitz is being stoic in the face of change...she hasn't run for the hills yet, so we think she'll be OK; I think she probably remembers them, and so her hate is tempered somewhat by familiarity. Juju is as smoochy as ever, and is apparently overjoyed to have somebody that will PLAY WITH HIM OMG: he follows Max around and grooms him and is just generally a precious bb. Max has settled in, but we're a little concerned...he's HUGE, bigger than Mitzie (who is big for a female DSH), and he keeps pestering her. We’re not sure if it’s an “I want to play with you!” thing or an “I want to be top cat!” thing; Mum’s trying to make Max aware of his place at the bottom of ladder, but we're not sure if he'll understand that or if he'll just get resentful, or if he'll understand and get resentful. :\

But: so far, so good. Of course, you all know what comes now: pictures! Also videos!

( Julian (aka King Julian aka Jujubean aka Juju aka Jude) and Max (aka Maximus aka Maximillian aka Baci Boy aka BB )
There's a longer version of that video wherein Juju rolls over and smacks Max in the face...I LOLd, no lie. XD

**

And now a much belated meme!

Comment on this post with I VOLUNTEER! I will give you a letter. You will think of five fictional characters that begin with that letter and post their names and your comments on these characters in your DW/IJ/LJ.

The lovely mixtapestar gave me the letter J! And I came up with:

( Five Js )

**
And now I have to get cracking on my final assessment pieces. I have:

• For Media & Politics:
  
  • a final exam wherein I have to two hours in-class to write an essay answering one of three questions given to us on the day (due next Wednesday)
• For Contemporary Domestic Politics in the US:
  • an oral presentation on judicial activism in the US (due next Wednesday)
  • an essay on a subject of my choosing (due in a week and a half),
• For Theory of International Relations:
  
  • an essay on any of the topics covered in the last six weeks (due in two weeks)
• For Strategic Studies:
  
  • a take-home final exam wherein we're given about 10 questions and we have to write one-page (at the most) answer to two of them (due a week after he sends out the questions)

Let's briefly discuss how much I love my Strategic Studies lecturer, OK. He's a great speaker, he's funny, he curses in class (well, he cursed once and then spent five minutes telling us how if we liked we could pretend that he was saying "phoque" (French for seal) instead of "fuck"), he sets doable readings, and our assessment from him consists of: an oral presentation (40% of grade), the take-home exam (40% of grade), and participation in class (20% of grade). He's on the same level of awesome as my Introduction to Politics/Political Institutions lecturer from last year, who was also a great speaker and marked us on in-class quizzes of five or ten questions each, one or two minor essays, and participation in class. If you ever get the chance to study at Sciences Po or Griffith University, try for a class with Ronald Hatto or Gideon Baker...those guys are A+ Excellent. :D

Edit: Wow, HTML fail. It should be fixed, but if it looks wonky, please tell me!

OK, so I bought a pair of domain names, and am now looking to set up the websites; anybody know any decent web hosts? I've Googled web hosting and am browsing the results, but only criteria at this point is a decently-priced host that has its own site-builder. Any suggestions?

**

Uni is being frustrating and interesting and scary and fun, which is pretty much par for the course, I guess. Roughly half of the frustrating and scary bits are my own damn fault, unfortunately, because I never did learn to start an assignment early, and therefore this week will be one big scramble to get my social issues article and two debate speeches completed. *facepalm*

**



( And the breakdown: )

**

Blah blah melodrama blah. Hope everyone is doing OK.

Rules:
a) Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search (http://www.flickr.com/).
b) Using ONLY the first page, pick an image.
c) Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Mosaic Maker. (Change rows to 3 and columns to 3.) (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/mosaic.php)
d) Save the image and post it!

The Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favourite food?
3. What is your favourite colour?
4. Favourite band?
5. Dream vacation?
6. Favourite hobby?
7. What you want to be when you grow up?
8. What do you love?
9. One word to describe you.

( Mosaic )

**

Last weekend I went to a Krav workshop coordinated by my instructors and led by the highest-graded instructor in Australia, Richard Fagan...my body still aches. This is, of course, the very same Richard Fagan to whom I very earnestly chatted to at the Krav Christmas drinks in Brisbane a couple of weekends ago. *facepalm* But he was very nice, and he didn't look at me like I'm a freak, and he told me I was doing well at one point, so I'm counting it as a win. It still kills me that I had to quit Krav when I moved to Vancouver...I could've been P4 by now.

My uni made me decide straight up if I wanted to pay up-front or take out a HECS/HELP loan. I chose to pay up-front, because I'm only taking one course this semester, and if I pay before the census date I only have to pay 80% (the government covers the rest). Also, I already have a HECS/HELP loan that I have to pay off, and I'm not interested in adding to it.

We're not going to NZ anymore...well, we will, but in April, not this Christmas. Going to go see Granddad for his birthday, and maybe dog-nap back Max if the old man is still feeding him crap. Also hoping to pop into Tauranga and check in on the Phelps branch of the family, and New Plymouth, and maybe the South Island, too...I've never seen it.

Christmas is going to be spent in Brisbane this year. Mum won a gift certificate for a hotel in the CBD for two nights, so we're staying there Christmas Eve and Christmas night, then going to her boss' place for his annual Boxing Day Bash.

We're putting in a garden soon. We bought some herbs on Monday - rosemary, sage, marshmallow, self-heal, peppermint - and investigated dirt and different methods of creating planter boxes today. Mum's getting into natural remedies, and I've been interested in herbs since I was 12 or so, so it'll be good to give it a go. My last garden did really well until it was eaten by a goat, so I think it'll go okay.