Sometimes nothing feels appropriate to talk about. Any of our boring life concerns here pale in comparison to the chaos and destruction back in US (thankfully, our friends and family seem to be alright). Even while we worry about New York, though, we know that it would be horribly wrong to ignore the destruction Sandy wrought in other countries. And, of course, it would be a mistake to only think about Sandy and ignore the larger, increasingly terrifying issue of global warming.
And then there's the US election. Ugh.
----
So, instead of trying to talk about any of the big-picture important stuff, here are a few silly photos of things that have happened around here. Hopefully, this can provide a brief, meaningless break from worrying about real issues.
1. Jon Simon
Our friend Jon came back to Melbourne to give a talk at the Melbourne philosophy department. The talk was mind-expanding: it was probably the first philosophy talk ever to discuss mind-body dualism, Sacred Fire, Hegel, and David Chalmers at the same time.
We went out to dinner afterward in Carlton. Colin's colleague Laura, who has quite different philosophical leanings than Jon, was there. Here's her and Jon, in a state of less than perfect agreement:
2. Taxes and sunshine
Australians celebrate Halloween by making 31 Oct. the due date for taxes. Naomi took on the challenge. She made the best of an unpleasant task:
By the way: filing Australian taxes is really not bad, as far as these things go. The government provides some free software, and we had responses about our returns within a couple weeks of filing.
3. New TimTam flavours
And those are Colin's slippers on bottom.
4. A birthday present for Justin
Our friend Justin is a bit evasive about things like his birthday, but we found out and got him a present. Colin wrapped it with pink ribbon. Then Jenn and Justin made us dinner. (Sorry for the bad picture, Jenn.)
Not long after the US election, we'll go to Sydney (finally!). Expect pictures of water...
No comments:
Post a Comment