Land Down Under

Happy Saturday :-)

Well it sure has been a while since I've posted. Mel was impatient to read about the latest juicy detail of my/her life (since I spend almost 24/7 with her), so I figured I'd indulge her. First, the most important aspect of my life: dinner tonight was meatballs, potato (yes, just one), and "plastic veggies." And purple mousse for dessert. Not quite sure what the purple mousse was made of, but it was most definitely lavender. It sort of tasted like the blackberry ice cream they had at camp the last year I was there, except it wasn't cold, which kind of made it gross. Moving on. Today was filled with rehearsals: after lunch we practiced right up til dinner, and right after dinner we had another hour or so long rehearsal. Mel's freaking out. Actually a lot of people are freaking out about it. I think it sounds pretty good for still being two weeks away from the show. Mr. Jones' productions in high school were definitely not sounding this good 2 weeks away from the show date, and by the end we sounded just like the CD. Or at least, pretty darn close to it.

Yesterday was the most amazingly fun day ever. Mel showed Lara and I around Melbourne, and we played "tourist" for the day. After lunch, we took the number 19 tram all the way to the end and started our "tour" at Flinder's Station. It's a train station with a lot of clocks, which apparently during WWII people used as a meeting spot. Then we walked across the Yarra River and saw a few different arts buildings. We backtracked a little and went to Federation Square, where people sit outside and watch sports on the big TV screen or concerts or whatever. Then we walked over to St. Paul's Cathedral, which is a huge old Anglican cathedral. Very pretty, with an ornate, beautiful pipe organ. After that, we walked around til we found a little place to eat dinner. Mom would be proud of me: I ate a grilled fish, with fries and a salad. You couldn't possibly understand how excited I was for this little salad. It was my first time eating salad in Australia. Since at home I eat salad at almost every meal, I definitely have been missing it here. It made me very happy. So happy, that when we finished, Lara, Mel, and I went shopping. I bought a cute sweatshirt and two shirts, one of which was the same as Mel. We stopped shopping at 9, but only because the stores closed. Overall, it was a very fun day. In general, I'm just really enjoying being here. Having fun at college is a new concept to me, and I think I really like it. It's too bad I can only spend one semester here. I could deal with not going back for a while. Maybe Australians are just nicer than Americans are. Actually, everyone I hang out with here is Australian, pretty much. I haven't seen Natasha or the other girls from the program for a few weeks now. I do hang out with Jen occasionally, who's American. She wants to go on the Cairns trip I found for Spring Break, so I'm excited. We just need to work out details and book it.

On Thursday night we had corridor activity. I live in the yellow corridor. The yellow and green corridors played laser tag at the Crown casino complex thingy. It was AMAZINGLY FUN. And I won the first game! By like, 3000 points or something! We played three games. Mel promised that one day we could come back and play all the other arcade games there. There are so many fun things to do here....I could just spend a whole year and vacation around Australia. Then again, there's always grad school....

I don't think anything else noteworthy really happened this week, other than I got my first two assignments, one in biology and one in social work. I'm almost finished with the bio one, just need to look up a few more things and get a cover sheet. And it's not due til next Monday!!! I'm so proud. (For those of you who aren't aware of my profession as Master Procrastinator, I take it very seriously and am extremely good at it. Example: I have yet to start a 10-page final paper before 12 hours before it's due. I also have yet to do poorly on one, just in case you were wondering how they turn out. Yes, I'm just that good.) My social work paper is going to be around 8-10 pages long, and isn't due until September 4th. Since we all know that I won't be starting the research for that until at the earliest September 1st, there's no point in even thinking about it yet. I've got a whole month. Mel and I were doing some reading for social work earlier, but I'm finding a lot of it is a combination of Developmental psychology and the disorders class I did last semester. I guess it's a really good class though, because it combines exactly the two things I want to do.

Anyway, this seems like a sufficiently long post, and it's Saturday night, so I'm going to go be social and hang out in Mel's room, and probably end up listening to her read all this out loud to Boosh, who will be sitting on her bed. Tomorrow's another footy game! (Oh yeah, pictures are up from that, they're in the Melbourne and Melbourne Gaol folder...and I'll put up pictures from our girls' day out on there in a bit too.)

posted by Christina @ 9:04 PM 1 comments

Post script to the last post

So I definitely thought that food couldn't get worse than that gross wormy-looking meatloaf thing we had last Hall night. I was wrong. We had some sort of large chicken nugget looking thing (with pink chicken, by the way. Not comforting in a country so close to the whole bird flu stuff) which was stuffed with oil and a little bit of green speckled cheese thing. And the soup was, as Boosh so eloquently put it, "well I saw someone had spewed near the tram stop, and it looked just like this!" Yeah. That was appetizing. They told us it was chicken soup, but I don't know....I like Boosh's theory better. It was more fitting. Now please excuse me while I try to keep my food down long enough to digest it.

posted by Christina @ 7:58 PM 0 comments

Why is it mandatory that Mondays be miserable?

Well, I suppose not miserable, but....they're Mondays. Yuck. Extra yuck if you have a class at 9am where you discuss child abuse and its ramifications. My brain isn't even alive at that time of morning, let alone functioning and able to grasp a concept as heavy as child abuse. I do really like that class, just.....not the time slot. And I'm not such a fan of the tute either, although I got away with not talking today. Mel and I ate eggs on toast during our break between the lecture and the tute. Yum. I never realized how much I really like hot foods until I came here and eat cereal for breakfast and a sandwich for lunch everyday. Anyway, I took a really good nap after the tute since I wasn't hungry for lunch, and then took the tram to class (it was rainy and yucky out...I swear I wasn't just being lazy). The lecturer for bio this time was much more interesting than the lady we had last week. She just put me to sleep! This time it was a man who had a very clear, loud voice. Very good for lecturing. We learned about the flowering plants of Australia.....let's just say it's a good thing this man had a loud voice. Not the most interesting subject. I'm waiting for the animals part of the course, which apparently doesn't come for another few weeks.

Yesterday morning we had the footy game. It was....interesting. There were quite a few boys in shorts that were half a foot too short (by my opinion, anyway). It was muddy and really sunny and I don't know how on earth those guys could even see the ball flying through the air. I understand the game about as much as I do American football. It just seemed like they can kick, toss, or run with the ball, and anyone can tackle them and/or drag them to the ground and fight them for the ball. I must admit, it was somewhat funny to watch a bunch of boys pile on top of each other and grab at the ball. Anyway, I'll try to post some pictures of that sometime soon. I also took some movies, but I don't know how to put them online. If anyone knows how to put them on here or on my picture site, let me know and I will love you forever!

I have about 20 minutes to decide whether or not I want to go to St. Hilda's Ball on Wednesday night. (They sell tickets at dinner tonight, which is in 20 minutes, hence, the 20-minute decision time). I don't know. If I go, I can't walk back by myself whenever I want, and I've got a 10am practical on Thursday morning. And I don't like dancing either. I'm not seeing much incentive to go, other than Mel's going and trying to get me to go too. Also, it costs AU67 (around US50-ish I think). That's kind of a lot of money, especially considering I don't tank alcohol (so I'd be paying for other people to drink a lot). On the other hand, I'd be able to wear the cute turquoise/blue dress I brought, and it'd be the only ball while I'm here. Hmmmm. I guess I'll decide at dinner. I'm thinking it might end up being no though.


On a really random note, I've had a pear sitting on my windowsill for the past 4 days now, and it's still hard as a rock. I had two originally up there, but yesterday I decided that one of them must be ripe because it had been 3 days. I was wrong. I think something's wrong with these pears. Maybe they just don't want me to eat them. It's a conspiracy against me. Everything here wants me to get fat and not be healthy...except the Slim in 6 DVDs sitting on my shelf, but we'll just ignore those. Wouldn't want to disturb the dust that has made its home on top of them, right?

posted by Christina @ 5:46 PM 1 comments