Being in Canberra for NICTA's TechFest, I had the opportunity to hand my thesis in to CECS at ANU early in the afternoon. Afterwards I listened to Narjess explain her graph enumeration scheme, which made more sense to me than it had in the past. We met up with Leon at University House and headed over to a Malaysian place for dinner, incidentally stranding Tom S. at the dumpling house. I had hoped to spend a fulsome evening at the Wig and Pen but a respiratory tract infection got in the way of anything serious. Although Tom S. and I were notionally sharing a room at University House, I was fortunate enough to get us a family suite, and so he wasn't compelled to contract my disease.
Narjess made breakfast for Leon, her friend Greg and I on Wednesday morning — some kind of potato cakes, fruit, tea, Turkish bread. I then had a quick coffee with Leon, whose hard disk refused to connect to my MacBook Pro. After that Narjess and I got some lunch and headed over to Parliament House in time to hear Julia open the NICTA TechFest, and in my case, meet up with Jean Vuillemin. There were signs of a concert happening out front later that evening: a celebration of five years since Kevin Rudd apologised for past sins against the Aboriginal peoples of Australia. The barbecue in the courtyard turned out to be a pre-cooked affair in the corridors of power; when my pass fell off I was politely escorted all the way back to the start, which I guess was an appropriate beginning to the year of the snake.
The trip home that evening was a bit hellish; we left around 7:45pm, and though I thought I was clever splitting a cab with other NICTA people, I didn't make it home until 12:10am.