Hi. I'm taking a break from study. I spent the last hour trying to figure out the Navier-Stokes equations to no avail. I'm not stupid (or am I?). It's just that the text book and especially our lecture notes are crap. The concepts of three dimensional flow behaviour are starting to form into something comprehendable in my brain and so I hope I will come to terms with it after dinner. But for now, all I can say is FLUIDS IS A HARD SUBJECT! But I digress. I'm not going to waste any more time complaining about the topic, which will be the topic I'll be reviewing for the rest of the night. EEP.

Back to the title of this post, I am slightly disappointed at Australia's (as a whole) response to the Shapelle Corby verdict in Indonesia. I've been reading all these comments such as "We gave Indonesia 1 billion dollars in aid of the tsunami and they can't even let one of our citizens go?", "I want my money back from the charities because what Indonesia has done to us is unjust", etc, etc. What is this? By thinking this, do we mean that what we gave Indonesia for the tsunami is a form of a bribe? Does helping them give us the power to let someone escape the law? Isn't that what we (as a collective of Australians) are against in the first place - corruption? And what makes us so aloof that we can criticize another country's laws and regulations? The conviction happened there, not here - regardless of nationality.

Extreme disappointment about the hate that has grown for the Indonesians. Paint thrown at the Indonesian consulates, hate mail, intimidating calls, suggestions that Indonesian students will have problems studying in Australia and getting places in Australian universities - WHAT IS GOING ON?!

I'm not saying that I believe Corby is guilty and that her trial was fair. In fact I think its truly unfair and that she is innocent and I feel terribly sorry for her, but I very much disagree with how a lot of people are taking it way out of perspective. I am proud that the culture of Australians is to help eachother out and that we would expect some kind of aid in return when we're in trouble but natural disasters and criminal conviction (to my knowledge) are two different things.

For once, I am actually supporting John Howard's stance on this which he quotes something along the lines of "we must respect the laws of another country and there's nothing we can do to change them" I am relieved that he hasn't gone and said "C'mon, help us out here like we have for you"

Although its normal for most of us to think that surely the Government should be doing a little bit more to help her, Corby's case isn't the first case where an Australian has been convicted overseas. It certainly has a lot of media attention, more so than usual. This is putting a lot of pressure on the Government to do something about it i.e.: Get her out of there. And that if the Govt. doesn't budge, the Australian masses will be very upset with the Govt. for being so relunctant to help our fellow citizen. The fact is, Australia has hardly ever given much support to foreign convictions of its citizens. It's never been much of an issue before because it was never widely covered in the media. Why is Shapelle so big in the media? Who knows - it could be to do with her looks, as far as I am concerned. Young, visually appealing, a volumptuous upper half body. It's not due to the fact that she could be innocent - there are other cases, such as the Tazzie man in the US who was appealing his innocence with no aid from the Govt. If the Govt. helps Corby now (and I mean financially, mostly), they are going to have to help a whole lot of other people.

I've come to the point where I'm no longer sure what the main objective of my argument is (as my brain is almost maxxed-out due to all the studying) but I think it just boils down to the fact that we shouldn't hate a foreign country just because it has different laws to us. And that those people who feel remorseful over donating in aid of the tsunami should re-consider the real issue here. And that commercial television and newspapers suck. And while I'm here, I may as well comment on how much commercial radio sucks too (mainstream music is getting very restrictive and even more bland these days, don't you think?).

In conclusion, I hope that the appeal that Shapelle is lodging to court will prove her innocence. Going through the law to get out of her 20 year sentence is the only option. She is very lucky, however, to have escaped the death sentence in the first place!