Types of schools in Australia

• Govt / Public
• Selective
• Catholic (Per Year 3,500 AUD)
• Private
• Gift and talented (semi selective)

Great migration - African American migration from the southern states...

Postmodernism

Relates to western thought; has three eras:

1. Pre modern:
• Before science came
• There were kings
• Church held roost
• Church issued bulls - Pope could issues - like fatwa
2. Modernity (of Europe, US, etc.)
• Challenge to church
• Role for science
• Separate role for religion
• Industry
• Technology starts
• Capitalism
• Free enterprise
• Material success
• Slavery & genocide, Colonial loot leading to wealth - Rockefeller, Phillip Morris, etc.
• Done brilliant things due to Science, industrialisation, etc.
3. Post modernity
• 20th century
• When they realised modernity produced some ugly things - communism, Nazism, etc.
• There is a crisis
• Is the latest fad
• It attacks modernity (attacks slavery, exclusivity)
• Attacked grand narratives of modernity
• Indians lack the context of our own culture and civilization, suffer from an inferiority complex, brought post-modernity into India, started "Deconstructing" and started the "Indian Grand Narrative".

• Modernism started with the industrial revolution. 
• Modernism saw attempts to explain society, human behavior, politics, sexuality with all-embracing theories called Grand Narratives.
• Modernism rejected culture and tradition.
• 
  

Derrida on incompleteness of text and "Author is dead"

Jacques Derrida was the best-known French philosopher of the 80s and 90s, yet many find it difficult to grasp his ideas. He asked complex philosophical questions about texts and textuality. He invented deconstructionism, which emphasizes the necessary incompleteness of texts. That is to say, “Deconstruction is used to show that a work does not adequately address something.” (Faulconer, Deconstruction, p.4) Derrida argued that there are many possible interpretations of any given text, and readers can play with texts as if playing with toys. According to Derrida, “what we get when we read a text is not an objective account of logos or even what the author really meant, but our present interpretation or understanding of the text itself. This understanding becomes so to speak, our own [text] of the text.” (quoted by Ozmone & Craver in the Philosophical Foundations of Education, p368.) So Derrida disputed the idea that the meaning of a text does not change. Moreover, he challenged the author’s intentions, and shows that there may be numerous reasonable interpretations of a text. I agree with Derrida about these things. This is where the idea of ‘the author is dead’ arises: once the text is written, the author’s input loses its significance.

- Philosophynow.org

Sydney Train Types

Places to visit in New South Wales, Australia

• Macquarie chair
• Opera house
• Wharf rides
• bondi beach
• Northern beaches lighthouse
• Bluemountains
• kiama
• Entrance central coast
• somersby falls
• Wedding cake rock
• royal national park
• Figure 8 pool
• Jelly bean pool national park
• Wentworth falls
• Empress national park
• Kiama blowhole
• jenolan caves
• Wiseman ferry
• Wombeyan caves
• Cessnock iskcon temple
• Port stephens
• Nelson’s bay
• 5 hrs drive 370kms Montaguyigue island.
• Sydney to narooma then catch ferries to Montague island to watch seals
• Grand Canyon walk
• Eagle rock royal national park
• cattai national park
• Lane cove national park
• Warrangamba dam
• Illawarra beach
• Watson bay
• Jarvis beach kiama berry nowra
• La Peru's
• Nelson bay
• Wattamola beach
• Caves beach
• Lake Macquarie
• Carrington falls
• New castle
• The entrance
• Hunter valley
• Wollongong

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Distance from Parramatta

Blaxland park – 10 Kms
Featherdale park (touch koalas and feed kangaroos.) - 15 kms
Cockattoo island 30 min journey - 19 kms
Fagan park -26 Kms
Ku-ri-nggagai national park Bobin head – 30 Kms
Luna park - 33 kms
Drive to blue point reserve - 35 kms
Taronga zoo -35 kms
Cranula – 38 Kms
Berowara ferries - 38 kms
Le peruse beach - 40 Kms
Cronulla beach - 40 kms
Coogie beach – 42 Kms
Bondi beach - 42 kms
Collins beach - 42 kms
Bronte beach - 42 kms
Royal national park - 42 kms
Hawksberry river - 45 kms
Long Reef beach – 50 Kms
Symbio park - 55 kms
Wottamolla beach - 55 kms
palm beach ( awesome) - 56 kms
Garie beach - 60 Kms
Wiseman ferry - 61 kms
Wentworth falls - 70 kms
Central coast – 70 Kms
Gosford – 70 Kms
Umina beach (near to patong) - 80 Kms
Blue Mountains – 80 Kms
Avoca beach - 85 Kms
Killcare beach - 90 kms
The entrance - 95 kms
Morriset park(kangaroo feeding)-115 Kms
Caves beach -125 Kms
Fitzroy Falls - 130 kms
Jenolan Caves - 150 Kms
Lucas cave - 150 Kms
Kangaroo valley - 150 kms
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Jervis Bay (white sand beach) - 220 Kms
Famous berry donut van
Hyams beach ( white sand) - 215 Kms
Huskisson pub in huskisson town-210 km
Army area
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Jervis bay - 220 kms
Katoomba winter festival
Port Macquarie - 380 kms
Hunter valley(wine tasting tour) - 238 Kms
Snowy Mountains – 480 Kms
Canberra – 280 Kms
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Kiama: 145 Kms
1. Helensburg temple – 56 Kms
2. Stanwell park lookout – 60 Kms
3. Sea cliff bridge (GRAND PACIFIC DRIVE) – 65 Kms
4. Austinmire beach – 75 Kms
5. Wollongong city – 114 Kms
6. Port kembla – 120 Kms
7. Minnamurra falls – 142 Kms
8. Kiama blow hole – 144 Kms
9. Little blow hole – 148 Kms
10. Nantein buddhist temple - 120 Kms
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Port stephen: 200 Kms
1. Whale & Dolhin watching
2. Parasailing
3. Gangan lookout – 201 Kms
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Gold coast – 840 Kms
Sand Dunes – 960 Kms
Philip island – 1,015 Kms
Tasmania – 1400 K

Day 1:
Sea world, madame tussades, wildlife during the day &
Opera house, darling harbour during evening time.
walk through botanical gardens to Mrs Macquarie’s chair and see ongoing Jacaranda bloom
There'll be vivid light show at Opera house at 7 pm (or my be later since its summer time). Easy to commute using public transport.
Day 2:
Trip to the Blue Mountains, which will take an hour from Parramatta. Visit three sisters, and scenic world train ride little bit of trekking if you like to and back home
Day 3:
Beaches and peaches, visit Bondi, Manly beaches.
Easy to commute using public transport.
Day 4:
Visit to the city, market Street, shopping, food, going around enjoying the city vibes during Christmas time. Come back and rest.
add Hyde park(Archibald fountain),
St Mary’s cathedral,
Sydney Tower( visit in evening near sunset time to get day and night view of the city)
Sydney the Full List
1) The Harbour / Circular Quay / the Rocks (self guided walking tour - google one) / Lady MacQuaries Chair: the classic vista of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, with the nearby Botanic Gardens and Taronga Zoo.
2) Watsons Bay via ferry from Circular Quay: the Light house and the views of Sydney from the Eastern Suburbs
3) Coogee to B

Excerpts from 101 Essays that will change the way you think...

1. You believe that creating your best life is a matter of deciding what you want and then going after it, but in reality, you are psychologically incapable of being able to predict what will make you happy.

Your brain can only perceive what it’s known, so when you choose what you want for the future, you’re actually just recreating a solution or an ideal of the past. When things don’t work out the way you want them to, you think you’ve failed only because you didn’t re-create something you perceived as desirable. In reality, you likely created something better, but foreign, and your brain misinterpreted it as “bad” because of that. (Moral of the story: Living in the moment isn’t a lofty ideal reserved for the Zen and enlightened; it’s the only way to live a life that isn’t infiltrated with illusions. It’s the only thing your brain can actually comprehend.)

2. You extrapolate the present moment because you believe that success is somewhere you “arrive,” so you are constantly trying to take a snapshot of your life and see if you can be happy yet. You convince yourself that any given moment is representative of your life as a whole. Because we’re wired to believe that success is somewhere we get to—when goals are accomplished and things are completed—we’re constantly measuring our present moments by how “finished” they are, how good the story sounds, how someone else would judge the elevator speech. We find ourselves thinking: “Is this all there is?” because we forget that everything is transitory, and no one single instance can summarise the whole. There is nowhere to “arrive” to. The only thing you’re rushing toward is death. Accomplishing goals is not success. How much you expand in the process is.

3. Bad feelings should not always be interpreted as deterrents. They are also indicators that you are doing something challenging and worthwhile. You learn the most when you put yourself into uncomfortable situations that let you grow, bring out the best, and nudge you to adapt yourself.

4. To change your beliefs, new line of thinking is not enough. To make real changes, seek experiences that will cause you to make changes to your belief and thus change you! A belief is what you know to be true because experience has made it evident to you.

5. Problems are not roadblocks to achieve something. They are in fact catalysts to make your life better by forcing you to take action to resolve, behave differently, and actualise the life you wanted. They push you from your comfort zone.

6. You think your past defines you, and worse, you think that it is an unchangeable reality, when really, your perception of it changes as you do.

Because experience is always multi-dimensional, there are a variety of memories, experiences, feelings, “gists” you can choose to recall… and what you choose is indicative of your present state of mind. So many people get caught up in allowing the past to define them or haunt them simply because they have not evolved to the place of seeing how the past did not prevent them from achieving the life they want, it facilitated it. This doesn’t mean to disregard or gloss over painful or traumatic events, but simply to be able to recall them with acceptance and to be able to place them in the storyline of your personal evolution.

7. Most negative emotional reactions are you identifying a dissociated aspect of yourself. (As in my case when I react sharply on seeing my daughter regurgitating a "forced' feed, I am reminded of my own childhood... and about similar ways I fed myself and puked).