Winza

Sorry for the lack of posts in August - its just that I have been ill for most of this month as well as stressed with academic work from uni. I promise to write a bit more in September.

According to this study, South Yarra is the most liveable suburb in Melbourne because it is close to the CBD, has good access to public transport and it is a shopping and eating precinct, hence it has the highest rating of 53. Meanwhile, places like Ashburton (where I live) and Port Melbourne scored 42 and 37 respectively and they are just as good as South Yarra to live in. That is in my perspective anyway.

The Liveable report is therefore not a good indicator of suburb liveability. First of all, the indicators should not be weighed equally as some indicators are more important than others. For example, coast proximity is not very important as a factor compared to other indicators such as shopping facilities and public transport and yet these three indicators are equally weighed. A weighing factor should be incorporated for a more useful planning tool.

Secondly, although this report is said to be objective, I am surprised to that there are many missing factors. I personally consider things such as housing prices, proximity to hospitals, noise and air pollution as factors that will strongly affect liveability. Although South Yarra is the “best” place to live in, I will not consider living there, as noise pollution can be heavy especially during weekends. And what about NIMBY factors? People wouldn’t want to live next to a factory or a landfill. It seems to me that the study hasn’t been thoroughly researched to include all possible factors.

It is also impossible to define and rank suburb liveability using this method because different people have different perceptions. A new migrant, a yuppie (young urban professional) and a family with children will not look at each suburb the same way. For example, a Yuppie might find South Yarra more suitable for living but an Asian migrant might not because they would rather live in a suburb that has a community that they can communicate with. And despite most people work in the city, not all of them do and so the importance of CBD proximity can vary among the population. A wealthy person would like to live in Toorak or Albert Park, but those not as wealthy might prefer suburbs where things are cheaper. And so it is impossible to have a fully objective methodology for this study because not everyone has the same perception and things always change depending on the time of the year.

Choosing the right place to live in is not based on what others say or the overall suburbs rankings, it is based on what people believe is suitable.

As a science student, I admit that I should know basic maths, physics and chemistry as well as common science vocabulary. And so I enrolled in a third year geodynamics course about a month ago because I like to study stuff on plate tectonics and geoscience stuff, but not realising that it is a geophysics subject. The first two weeks went fine and the assignments weren’t that hard.

But when the third and forth week of semester came, I started to struggle because there were two assignments on plate kinematics, which assumes that students have some understanding of vectors. I know what a vector is, but I haven’t really been taught about adding and subtracting them. And so I went and spoke to the lecturer about it and he replied that I should have known about them since high school.

Maybe I have misinterpreted what it wrote in the handbook about the prerequisites or there is some problem with the wording. The handbook says that I require “12 credit points at level 2 in ESC, PHS or MTH units”. Presumably, this means that I had to do 12 points of either geosciences, physics or math in second year. And so as long as I have done 12 points of geosciences in second year, I would not be expected to have a second year background in physics or maths.

I have also discussed this issue with a number of other people doing third year geology and I have found that some people did do vectors in high school and some didn’t (despite not having done specialist maths in VCE) - and I was in the group that didn’t do vectors in high school. If that was the case, then it should have been in the physics course in first year uni, but it wasn’t at the time when I studied it.

Great. Another flaw in the VCE and the tertiary education system.

If I knew about flaws in the VCE curriculum and chose to do the IB five years ago, then this wouldn’t be such a problem.

Last week’s weather was quite warm until Wednesday/Thursday and then it has been raining all weekend. And now the Bureau forcasted snow for today.

I have been sick since Monday, and went all drowsy on Tuesday. Today, my conditions have worsened - coughing up greenish-yellow phlegm and feel very weak. So I rang up a Medical centre in High Street, Ashburton and I told them that I wanted to make an appointment. As soon as they learn that I haven’t been in before, they were annoyed as said that “I should go to [my] family doctor for consistency” and hung up on me. What a pathetic way to treat potential patients!

It has been getting busier and busier as the semester moves on - week 3 and I am already mentally struggling to get assignments done! Spent most of my time at uni recently for classes and pracs and at home watching Cantonese TV on most evenings (maybe I have an obsessive TV and Internet disorder). Not to mention that I can’t sleep well before midnight on most nights. But I do manage to keep up with the news and the Harry Potter world thanks to the internet.

The weather here has changed from very warm on Monday and Tuesday to pouring rain today and on Wednesday. Hope more rain land in the catchments so that water restrictions will be eased.