Monumental Travesty or Triumph of Justice?

A lot of people getting in an uproar about this case in Nelson, chiefly those with or have a close association with disabled children. By all means this case should not be set as a precedent to allow all parents who do not desire to keep their disabled children to kill them. However, the problem in this case arises over the definition of the word person. If the baby was indeed a person then the father committed the henious crime of infanticide, whereas if the baby was not a person then no such charge could be levelled. The baby's brain had stopped developing as a thirteen-week foetus and, from what I understand, was unable to do even the most instinctive actions such as feeding itself without aid. Was then the baby actually a person? If a person is defined as someone who is able to pursue happiness and experience joy then I doubt whether this baby could actually be called a person ( bearing in mind that I have no medical expertise and would welcome correction from any qualified person). However, if a person is merely a human born of two homo sapiens then the baby was indeed a person. Furthermore, American law has a clause referring to a state defined as brain dead. This state is one where a person's brain ceases to function but their body can be sustained through artificial means. Once a person is declared to be in this state the medical staff charged with their care can legally turn off the life support without being called euthanasia. Now I know that America is not exactly a shining example of what to do, but if the classification of brain dead then it could be accepted in this case.

WatzUp

I finally am able to blog again since I've been without internet for a week. A lot has happened in the week and a half since I left Christchurch. First after seeing some of you Saturday evening I left for Balclutha the following morning. The drive was reasonably good, the road going south was relatively quiet (as was expected with people returning to Christchurch from Show weekend) and I had my disc-man plugged in with good music cranking. However, good things cannot last forever and things started to turn to custard. For those of you that don't know my car is a beast not only is she an automatic but she also beeps when you go 103 kph (oh, wait good Christian ... I was going precisely the open road speed limit and therefore did not find out this information). Whats worse she isn't properly tuned. I passed a couple of cars (not going anywhere near 130 whilst passing of cours) when she started to misfire and chunder along, which made the ride very rough and whats worse it made my discman skip. I resolved to get to the next town and try to stop the car and restart to get it to fire correctly. Anyway I was getting quite frustrated for obvious reasons when I hear a bang and the rear of the car started to drag, I had popped my rear tire, on top of that I was at the head of a bridge at the time so I had to drive the length of the bridge with a bung tire. At the end I pulled to the side of the road to take a look at the damage. The left rear wheel tire was absolutely shredded so for the first time ever I had to change a tire. The good news was that when I restarted the car it was firing correctly, the bad news was that I still had the four hour drive to Balclutha ahead of me in the beast. I put on some worship music to calm my nerves a bit, Jeremy Camp's Carried Me: Worship Project to be precise, the first song ironically enough was 'I will trust in the Lord' which was exactly what I needed to hear. I got to Balclutha safely and without any further adventures.

The family I am staying with hear are relaxed Christians, in other words they don't have many major hangups which is all good. However, you will be amazed to hear that they drink more coffee in a day than I normally do in a week, and since they're constantly brewing they always do an extra one for me, and I find it hard to refuse. The downside is that it is instant, however, I do have some plunger stuff to give me a proper wakeup call (hmmm, I might bring them down some Hummingbird for a Christmas present). They have two beautiful girls (four and eight) who have decided I am something akin to an older brother or cousin. They also have five cats which after figuring me out have reclaimed my room except for one that looks like Garfield (an orange tabby that is massive) which still is unsure about me, I may have to buy him some lasagne. They go to the local Anglican which seems pretty alright however it looks like I am the only one in my age bracket (15-30) so I may have to find another one.

Obviously I have started at PPCS Ltd, Finegand. For those of you that don't know PPCS is a slaughterhouse ie cows and sheep go in one end and meat comes out the other. Well...that isn't strictly true actually lots of stuff comes out the other end there is pretty much nothing which they don't use. Even the blood (which they drain from the animal according to the practises of halal) is processed. I finally went down to the Sticking room (where the sheep are killed) for the first time on Monday. It wasn't that bad although I couldn't watch it for too long (I won't say anything more lest this site gets R-rated for blood splatter). The smell around the plant is horrendous because of the fat Rendering they do. The task they have set for me is mammoth. I have to assess the departments to discover sources of wastewater that is going to the effluent treatment plant (don't even ask me about that which is going into stormwater ... the place is a 'mare). Then I have to discover points where I can sample in order to get an accurate representation of flow and composition from each department (this includes the stock yards where the sheep and cattle go to the bathroom). Then I have to assess each stream in terms of cleanliness (this is according to the BOD) and then organise the sampling routine with dirtiest and cleaniest getting highest priority and then do flow and composition sampling. I am going to be kept busy until I get back to Christchurch.

Anyway signing off now, I will be up in Christchurch from the 23^rd December to the 4^th of January, though I'll be Nelson for Christmas but will definitely get into Christchurch and will look forward to catching up with any of you guys that are around. Also if you could recommend any movies for me since that is a good way to kill the evenings/weekends it would be muchly appreciated. Ahh, I am relishing the DVD capabilities of this wee beaut of a laptop.

Movies

In spite of some of your deprecation of my lack of taste in movies I shall attempt to have a movie night at my place tomorrow night. The movie of choice is a bit unknown as yet and I'd be open to suggestions, however, one idea might be 'Man on the Moon' or similar.
DetailsWhere: 101 st Andrews sq, near St Andrews CollegeWhen: tomorrow night about 7:30 pmWho: anyone who wants to though some facial recognition would be helpfulWhy: one last chance for me to see you wonderful peopleWhat: movies, 'Man on the Moon'?, suggestions?
if you want to come txt me, email me or comment to this post.
J-Rod

Rollercoaster

Well, I am finally done with my exams. I must be like the last person in the world to finish my exams. And in true Chem Eng style they sent us off with a hiss and a roar or in other words a 7 and 1/2 hour exam. I mean, is that cruel and unusual or what. Basically they gave us a process plant and told us to do a mass balance on it. I took 3 hours to do it because I didn't realise that some values were subtlely hidden. My results were completely whack in the heat balance which gave me a heat exchanger that had 1700 sq.m of surface area and spent $5 million dollars to purchase it. At least I answered all the questions and I think I gave at least some proof that I knew what I was doing.
It was such a good feeling to have finished it and my classmates and I grabbed a few cold ones and climbed onto the roof of the engineering building outside our design office and just moaned relaxed and chilled (both literally and figuratively). Tonight the whole class and lecturers are off for dinner to celebrate the end of 3 years of Chem Eng. Its such a strange feeling when every day for the past 3 years we've been turining up to the same places and seeing the same people. I'm surprised to find that I'm actually going to miss it much as it was stressful going through it. Ah well, nothing will ever remain the same so maybe I should learn how to enjoy what I've got and not worry that it might not be there tomorrow.

On a sadder note one of the girls in my youth group who I would consider a friend has recently tried to commit suicide. She hasn't been turning up to church for the past few years but I could never picture her commiting suicide. Its such a strange concept for me I might profess to be a Christian Nihilist (ie if God doesn't exist then I can't see a meaning of life but thats for another post maybe) but I can't comprehend someones life being so bad that they cannot see any light at the end of the tunnel and believe that nothing could ever get better. I feel for her sister and parents and can't even comprehend how they must be feeling. The concept that someone I have known for so long and at least attend church would commit suicide seems to open a big question mark in my life. God is good, life is tough, expect no more.

Finally changing the topic yet again I am leaving for Balclutha on Sunday. I am actually looking forward to it (apart from leaving Christchurch and my friends for the summer) the project that I have been set is really interesting for a Chem Eng and if I do well I might be able to hook something up for next year as well. Anyway, to all of you that I don't see before Sunday, have a great summer. To those of you off to a different country God bless and go hard and I'll be looking forward to hearing all about it. To those of you I won't see again (ie those leaving Chch and becoming 'contributing members of society') God bless and have a great life, always seek the perfect moment, joy and God. Finally I will be back for a couple of weeks over the Christmas/New Years period (though not Christmas itself since the family is off to Nelson) and will hopefully catch up with some of you then.

God bless you all and via con Deios.

Obviously I aren't good at thinking up blog titles

I am disappointed I let my 22nd post (the meaning of meanings), my 42nd post (the meaning of life), and now my 82nd post (the meaning of Murphy) go past uncelebrated. So I shall use this post as a joyous tribute to those milestones. Let us take a minutes silence to think of these wondorous numbers...
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Thats enough.

I have had my first 2 exams and now have to wait 7 days until my last one. And its going to be a doozy 7 and half hours in the glade (one of the engineering computer suites) starting at 9:30 am and going until 5:30 pm (I know this totals to 8 hours but we get a half hour lunch break), we are given a process and told to design a BFD (block flow diagram), a PFD (process flow diagram), and giving a cost analysis for the process (I do not know whether we have to do P & ID (process and instrumentation diagrams) for it as well but sincerely hope not). The thought of a 7.5 hour exam is quite scary and an unpleasant prospect. Ah well, c'est la vie.

Regarding my first exam it was bad firstly half an hour before the exam started I could not find my calculator. 20 mins before my exam started I still could not find my calculator but had found my brothers. 15 mins before my exam started I could not get my brothers calculator to work (trying all tricks to get it to do so, on button, reset button, whacking it against the desk, replacing the batteries, and combinations of the aforementioned). 5 mins before the exam started I was in the 3rd Pro Design Office and saw a calculator sitting on a class mates desk, he won't have an exam now, excellent, and it worked. Into the exam half exam done 'oh dear' (maybe slighty different language than that) the questions asked in the second half were exactly those that I had glossed over in study. Ah well, c'est la vie.

My second exam was fantastic (I know I shouldn't use that sort of language about an exam but it does convey my joy). First off it was completely open book, we got to take in both of our text books, our notes from the year, and a cheat sheet. The only things not allowed were cellphones (since one of our class mates started receiving binary signals from Chris the lectrurer :P) and talking. The questions were brilliant just the sort of stuff I like, ie here are some equations to these apply some equations and rules that you were taught in class and tell me the answer. So simple. I'm loving it.

Anyway good luck to any of you who still have exams and catch ya round. Au revoir.