Words to Lyrics Ben Ho's observations from the cloud

2 February 2013

Sydney Universities Dates: Semester 1 2013

Filed under: Forward Thinking — Tags: , , , — Ben @ 7:37 pm

Happy 2013!

DATES S1 2013

Notes: As reported by the university, therefore weekends may or may not be counted. If you have additional information, please email me.

S1 Start Mid-Semester Break Study Vacation Examinations Winter Break S2 start
MQ 25 Feb 13 Apr to 28 Apr 11 Jun to 28 Jun 29 Jun to 28 Jul 29 Jul
UNSW 4 Mar 27 Mar to 7 Apr 8 Jun to 13 Jun 14 Jun to 1 Jul 2 Jul to 28 Jul 29 Jul
USYD 4 Mar 29 Mar to 5 Apr 10 Jun to 14 Jun 17 Jun to 29 Jun 30 Jun to 28 Jul 29 Jul
UTS 25 Feb 22 Apr to 26 Apr 8 Jun to 28 Jun 29 Jun to 28 Jul 29 Jul
UWS 25 Feb 15 Apr to 21 Apr 3 Jun to 7 Jun 11 Jun to 30 Jun 1 Jul to 28 Jul 29 Jul
ANU 18 Feb 29 Mar to 12 Apr 1 Jun to 5 Jun 6 Jun to 21 Jun 22 Jun to 21 Jul 22 Jul

Sources:
MQ: http://www.mq.edu.au/about/calendar.html
UNSW: https://my.unsw.edu.au/student/resources/AcademicCalendar.html
USYD: http://sydney.edu.au/about/dates/
UTS: http://www.handbook.uts.edu.au/dates_academic.html
UWS: http://www.uws.edu.au/currentstudents/current_students/managing_your_study/dates/2013_academic_year_dateline
ANU: http://about.anu.edu.au/principal-dates

4 January 2013

Sydney Festival 2013

Filed under: Arts — Tags: , — Ben @ 6:36 pm

Happy New Year everyone! I’m rather happy to be involved in the Sydney Festival again this year as a volunteer and marshal. This year’s festival is jam-packed with events, and is the first to be directed by Lieven Bertels. Some of the main events include the Arrival of the Rubber Duck, Concrete and Bone Sessions: a dance-theatre act held at a skate park and the music events at Paradiso, the Festival Bar in Town Hall.

This is my third year volunteering for the Festival, and I enjoy meeting and talking to all sorts of people that pass through the city. I’m usually at the information booths, collecting about funny questions people ask me, as well as telling people about what they can see at the Festival. It’s pretty obvious that I love when friends and all pass by where I’m stationed, so below are the dates that I’ll be at booths.

Thurs 10 Jan: Martin Place booth 3-7pm
Tues 15 Jan: The Quiet Volume, Mitchell Library 12:30-4pm
Fri 18 Jan: Martin Place booth 1-7pm
Thurs 24 Jan Circular Quay booth 1-5pm

I’m also marshaling at the Arrival (rubber duck) this Saturday 5 January and at the Parramatta opening and closing parties on 19 and 26 January respectively. Do say hello if you see me around, but first and foremost, enjoy these free events!

13 July 2011

Sydney Town

Filed under: Movies,Reflection — Tags: , , — Ben @ 12:28 am

I get really excited when a film or TV show is set in Sydney. For me, it becomes a game of identifying the locations, and then going there. Why do I want to visit the places concerned? Because it is kind of cool to understand how they add to the plot. A location is not just a dot on a map; the culture and characteristics define it too.

One great example is the first film of the Matrix series. Martin Place was used because it could portray the idea of a ‘perfect’ city (Trust me, it was more like that back in 1999!). In case you have not seen the film, the Matrix is a simulated reality of a perfect city used to fool humans while machines harvest their body heat for energy. As a Sydneysider, walking the length of Martin Place sometimes makes me feel like I am living in the best city in the world.

Let me cite another example. The recent ABC TV series Rake, centres on barrister Cleaver Greene who lives in Kings Cross, and has a ‘seedy’ lifestyle. Greene’s flat above a café does exist (in a quiet side street near the Cross), and one scene is shot at the El Alamein fountain (which I did not know existed; shows you how much I go there!). I am yet to find where Greene’s ‘lawyers bar’ is though (I think it is somewhere along Elizabeth St).

Sometimes the wrong connotation can be given to a location. Take Julia Leigh’s film Sleeping Beauty (Go see it, a great film). Lucy, a university student takes a high-paying job being a fantasy for old men. Leigh probably wanted to use a ‘generic’ university location, but several scenes are shot at the University of Sydney. For those that are interested, they take place in and around the Carslaw building, and the lawns outside the New Law building. I could immediately identify the location (I go to USyd), but to a casual moviegoer, it would be aesthetically pleasing architecture at a university.

What is interesting is that recently the SMH wrote about a large brothel (Stiletto), about to open opposite the university’s campus. A coincidence, or art imitating life?

20 January 2011

Review: LIVE at Sydney Festival 2011

Filed under: Arts,review — Tags: , , , , , , — Ben @ 8:00 am

The concept for LIVE seems so simple: musicians, black and white, solo performance. But after viewing a few of the 20 performances on show, you’ll realise that there is more behind what you see.

LIVE is a project by Jasmin Tarasin to attempt to study ‘the art of performing’. I have to agree that large-scale performances that musicians do these days have lost their ‘intimacy’, and Tarasin does well to bring us right up close to these artists. Showing the performances in black and white removes the distraction of key elements of a performance such as their dress, and instruments.

The performance that represented Tarasin’s vision the best was that of Julian Hamilton, one half of The Presets. Hamilton’s performance had no instrumentation, so all you could focus on was his singing voice. His vocal part from ‘People’ is vastly different to that on the album recording, and it shows the song from another perspective.

By watching long enough, the subtle differences between performers are apparent, and interesting to watch. At one stage, three guitarists were pictured side-by-side. Each had a different way of playing their guitar. You could notice the positioning of the guitar, and their style of playing.

LIVE is a rather inexpensive way of seeing 20 songs from 20 different artists. I would highly recommend you to see it before it closes this weekend.

LIVE is open until January 23, at the lower part of Sydney Town Hall. Tickets are $15/$12.

PS: I’m volunteering at LIVE handing out headphones on the 23rd between 5pm and 7:30pm. Come visit!

18 January 2009

Chocolate Cafés in Sydney

Filed under: review — Tags: , , , — Ben @ 12:37 pm

Updated: Max Brenner review

Over the past few holidays, I have tried several chocolate cafés in Sydney. There are three that I have been to. Now, if you don’t mind, here is the boring bit about how I reviewed each of them.

The product that I reviewed from each café is a take-away iced milk chocolate. Each café gets rated out of 5 on three things: Service, Food and Value. Food is how good the drink is.

So, here goes.
(more…)

22 April 2008

Birthday

Filed under: Attended,Reflection — Tags: , , , — Ben @ 7:08 pm


Everyone and the mascots

Originally uploaded by hohohob

Last Sunday, I had my birthday party. There were five of us to begin with at Luna Park. There, we had fun for a while, before Simon left and the rest of us took a ferry. It went to Circular Quay, and after getting off, we walked to Wagamama, one of my favourite restaurants. Dinner was had, before Georgina left us. The rest of us took the train home.

That’s it in a nutshell.

You know, the party went better than expected even though the other five I invited were away or sick. It was right after a week long camp some people went to, and it rained every single day. Just a small group of people, having a good time.

Now to get on with life.

Flickr photoset

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