I'm feeling the time pressure with the dissertation. I don't see myself doing much other than dissertation work for the next couple of days. After that, I'm looking forward to cleaning out my cube at PLAS, removing my files from the QUT hosts, and finally calling myself a free man.

I haven't heard from John Gough about my Compiler Lab project yet. I guess that I can take that as a good sign.

I got an email from a mate of mine from PLAS with an awfully detailed critique of the differences between C# and Java, stemming from some previous emails. The sheer technical skill of some people I know is truly humbling.

I think I might pay a visit to my parents this weekend - they've probably forgotten what their eldest son looks like :) I'm really looking forward to catching up with my family, drinking beer and enjoying my mother's cooking for once.

I'm also looking forward to buying my camera, and getting back into karate training, but I'd rather not think too much about it while I have so much work hanging over my head.

Why have I ignored karate for the last six months? Besides me being such a lousy time manager, there's also the expense: from what I can tell, the McMahon's run a high-quality operation, so they charge a premium for it. In the back of my mind, the part of the training that I really dislike is the fact that I have to train in a co-ed class, where I'd feel a lot more comfortable training in an all-male environment, which I'd find much less threatening. I'm not being sexist; I just find that the additional stress of having young women (with 'karate-attitude ha-YA!!') around unhelpful. Maybe I just worry too much.

...

A friend of mine recently got a girlfriend. One thing that has stood out is that now that he has a regular partner, I find that there's so much that I cannot talk about with him anymore. I wonder if this stems from the phenomenem where when people get married or whatever, they lose all their single friends and find new friends who are also married. Relationships must have some major drawbacks, as well as the obvious advantages.

I find myself resenting their happiness in a way, and I fear that that resentment is becoming obvious, especially to the lovebirds in question. Why should I be resentful? Am I pissed off because I haven't been able to find a steady partner of my own? I believe that I have so many reasons not to be resentful, because of the drawbacks of having a long-term relationship: reduced mobility, job and travel options, having to share expenses, having someone 'in your face' whether you feel like company or not, etc.

Committment must be such a pain in the arse for men, I reckon. Yet it's something that many women, I observe, insist upon. I have a female friend who got into a long term relationship, only to have it self-destruct when she wanted to get married, and he didn't (which was a massive waste, since he was a top bloke who was from my POV perfect for her). She didn't seem to handle too well the fact that committment of that magnitude (marriage!) is a hell of a thing to ask from another person, especially a man with ambition and a budding career.

How do I feel about all this? I think that basically, I need a low-committment 'fuck-buddy' relationship. After getting the deed over and done-with, I think I'd be in a far better position to work out what I want out of a relationship, and how it all relates to the rest of my life.

...

Two days to go!