Yes, it happens in real life too

So I walked into a pole today.  I always thought that was something that just happened on TV or in movies, that it's too ridiculous to happen in real life.  Turns out it's not because I have a lovely bruise developing on my forehead, lol.

It seemed like something that deserved a post of its own...

Done (!!!)

Right now I stand on the brink of what will hopefully be two of the most relaxing weeks I've had here.  Here's how I got here:

Last week, Monday-Thursday:

Pretty much all I did was write papers, almost exclusively.  Some interesting parts of the week:

-A mission with my friend to try to get ten ridiculous vocab words into our first paper due (for me, Asia: Culture, Environment and Development).  When I had gotten 8 of them into my paper and he had stopped trying at 2, it turned into a bet.  So when I finally got all 10 of them in, he had to buy me a drink at the Halloween party later in the week...score.  Here were the words: Coagulate, bequeath, advent, nexus, amalgamate, entrenched, voracity, palpable, divisive, and decrepit.  I think coagulate was the hardest one to get in there.  Or maybe decrepit...anyway

-Halloween shopping for the double birthday party/Halloween party that 2 of the Port Lodge kids had on Thursday night.  Costumes explained later in the post :)

-My very first all-nighter.  Maybe not so much a highlight as a lowlight, but it was still definitely notable.  This was Tuesday night, after I had spent all day Tuesday writing and had finished a third of my Christology paper only to have some sort of computer glitch delete all my work.  Yeah.  I got so mad that I decided to stay up until I got my last 2 papers completely done.  It didn't exactly work out that way, as I slept from 6-7:30 Wednesday morning and then from 2-6 Wednesday night.  Regardless, I got very, VERY little sleep last week.

-The comical state of my trashcan by Thursday morning.  Photo evidence of my dependency on Diet Coke (PS they're 1.5 litre bottles...):

-Researching for and writing a total of 25 pages worth of papers within the span of about 5 days (not including the 2 papers from the week before).  Turning in that last paper on Thursday was an awesome feeling, especially since it was the last piece of work I had to do before finals in November.

Thursday:

After getting all my stuff turned in on Thursday, I still had to go to macro and community dinner.  But after we had to start getting ready for the birthday/Halloween party that night!  A couple of the girls from Perth (including Katie!) came for the party, which was held in the back room of the bar that's right down the street from Port Lodge called The Orient.  I was in a group doing The Price is Right:  we had a guy as Bob Barker, his girlfriend as one of the Barker Beauties, and then me, Katie (Freo Katie, not Perth Katie)and Andria were contestants with outrageous homemade shirts.  My shirt said "Remember me, Bob?"  And then over my very pregnant belly: "IT'S YOURS"  It definitely got a lot of comments at the party, haha.

Friday:

Friday morning was Australian History class and tutorial, then I finally made pizookie for the girls here in Freo (and proceeded to feel sick for the rest of the day lol).  That stuff is amazing but it's definitely something you can only do once in a while.  I'm glad I was able to pass it on to other people though; it's too good not to.  We were originally scheduled to leave for our weekend at Rottnest Island at 3:30 on Friday, but some of us got our tickets changed to leave Saturday morning at 9:30 instead.  It wasn't that warm outside, was supposed to rain, and I was exhausted from the week.  I proceeded to go back to Port Lodge and sleep for most of the rest of the day, and when I heard the rain pouring down and the thunder crashing I was so glad I was in my bed instead of a tent.

Saturday:

Saturday morning we left for Rotto, and 40 of us got to ride the speedboat ferry there instead of the regular ferry, which was an awesome decision!  The waves were pretty rough, so it was sort of like riding a roller coaster.  It actually ended up being the best part of the weekend...go figure.

I guess I should explain about Rotto a little first.  It's an island about 19 km off the coast of Freo, and it's actually a nature reserve so a lot of it (all of it?) is protected.  It's tiny though, at 11 km long and 4.5 km wide, and there's just one little shopping area with a couple of fast food places, a general store, a souvenir shop, etc.  Bikes are basically the only form of transportation besides the tourist buses that go around the island.  It's a popular tourist spot and is supposed to be one of the "must-do's" when visiting Perth or Freo.  It has a resort (I think), a hostel, villas/bungalows to rent, and campsites.  We were at a campsite because we didn't book early enough to get a villa.

So after we got to there, we rented bikes and took our stuff to the campground, and Betsy and I set up our tent that our Australian History lecturer had lent us on Friday.  Then a bunch of us set out to try to find the nice beach we had heard about.  We took off on our bikes for what turned out to be a really hilly ride.  Apparently none of us realised that Rotto is not flat. At all.  It had been threatening rain all day, and when we finally got there the skies opened up so we went back to the campsite.

After waiting out the rain, me and 4 others decided to go bike around the island to check it out, and we set out for what ended up being a 2+ hour ride.  I'm not sure if we did the whole ride around the island, but it sure felt like it.  The scenery was beautiful (still really hilly though) and we saw some gorgeous beaches.  It wasn't warm enough to actually go for a swim though.  The only downsides to the bike ride were the rain that started falling towards the end of the ride, and the crappy loose chain on my bike that made me have to stop way too many times to fix it.  But all in all I'm glad we rode around because otherwise all I would've seen of the island basically would have been the campsite and Subway.

Later in the afternoon, we all (a lot of the ND students plus a good number of the other study abroad students) just hung around the campsite until it was time for dinner.  Dinner for me was Subway, and dessert was the Nutella that me, Katie and Andria shared over girl talk in the tent.  Then Betsy joined girl talk, followed later by Kevin, Erin, Jackie and Kim.  By that point the tent was pretty much full, and we all went down to the beach where some people had already built a fire in a pit.

We sat around the fire for a while, and Erin, Jackie, Andria and I played a game where you make up a ghost story by each person adding on a couple of sentences to the story.  It involved a beach, a big group of kids, an abandoned barber shop, and a lighthouse, and alternated between being hysterically funny and actually kind of creepy.

Sunday:

No one slept very well that night because some of the people were being super loud and obnoxious and also because it was fairly cold.  I also didn't bring a pillow and just had my thin airplane blanket.  So by the time morning rolled around, everyone was ready to get on the 10:30 ferry back to Freo instead of the 4:30 one, and luckily there was enough room for us all.  I'm sort of disappointed the trip wasn't better, because other abroad groups have raved that going to Rotto is the one thing you have to do while you're here, but I think a lot of it had to do with the subpar weather which no one can really do anything about.  Oh well.

Oh yeah, here's a picture of the little kangaroo-type animals that live on the island.  They're really cute, but there's a ton of them and they're everywhere on the island.  They're called quokkas.

So anyway, the rest of today was awesome and lazy and involved lots of lounging and TV and movie watching.  This week of classes is our last one and is just a review week, so we're all looking forward to a break.  Then after that is study week, then 2 weeks of exams, then we're leaving Freo for good.  It's sort of hard to believe it's so close to being over.  But there's still more good times to be had before that gets here!

Aaaand now it's time to go sleep some more :)

<3

Caffeine.

That's what's keeping me going right now. I'm currently on my second 1.5 litre bottle of Diet Coke following two 1 litre bottles over the course of the weekend. I haven't had any Diet Coke here before this week...with such a minimal work load there was hardly any need for it. I forgot about how much I love it though. I don't know why anyone would ever drink coffee or tea over Diet Coke. I mean, yeah, there's the whole more caffeine thing, but what you gain in energy you lose in taste. Times a million. Moral of the story: Diet Coke = awesome.

So the reason I'm drinking so much of the stuff is because I'm smack in the middle of my 2 hell weeks, aka 5 papers due over the course of last week and this week. Last week I had two to turn in on Friday, and this week I have one due Tuesday, one due Wednesday, and one due Thursday. Right now it's Monday night and I shouldn't even be taking the time to write in here but I need a break.

I'm not really sure how I survived last spring on so little sleep. Pretty much every day I would go to bed between the hours of 2 and 4 and wake up between 7 and 9 and somehow managed to be coherent and alive most of the time at school? Then I come here and have one 5-hour night's sleep and I'm exhausted. I guess it all depends on what you're used to.

Thursday night and the weekend are definitely my lights at the end of the tunnel right now. By Thursday at 4 pm, I will have handed in all class assignments until finals in November. Then that night is a double birthday party/Halloween party, followed by a weekend at Rottnest Island. Cannot. Wait.

In theory, here's what I should be an expert on by the time Thursday rolls around:
-The effect of colonisation on the success of the Nattukottai Chettiar Indian caste in Burma (Business in Asia paper)
-The macroeconomics of the Great Depression (Macroecon paper...shocker)
-The effect of colonisation on the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka (Asia Culture paper)
-The Christology and soteriology of the Book of Hebrews (Christology paper)
-The effect of the Anzac legend on Australian national identity (Australian history paper)

In more exciting news, I got to see Katie and Kenzie for the first time in a while this weekend! They came to Freo on Saturday and we got to catch up with each other and go to the beach. AND they baked cookies. It was really awesome to see them and I think we're going to be going up to Perth next week so we'll get to hang out more over the next couple of weeks :)

I guess that's it for now; I've probably procrastinated long enough. The Book of Hebrews calls...

My brain is sore.

Whoa. Just finished paper 1 of 3.  Granted, it's just a rough draft and I technically haven't done the actual referencing yet, but if you know me at all you know that for me to finish a paper a day ahead of time, much less 4, is basically unheard of.  And it turned out to be longer than it probably needs to be and definitely longer than I intended it to be.  When did I turn into such a nerd?!?

Oh, and one of the papers that was supposed to be due Friday (Asia Culture) got pushed back to Tuesday...YAY.  That just leaves one 2000-worder for Friday.  But I want to get the Asia Culture one done before the weekend because I'll need that time to start/work on my two papers due next week. Yikes.

Anyway, I just wanted to write in here about how weird it is that we've reached the point where people are putting together lists of things we still need to do before we leave.  Here's what mine looks like:

-Rottnest Island (aka Rotto).  Not too worried about this one because we already have campsites booked for the weekend after we get everything finally turned in - woooo.  Basically all of Port Lodge is going to be there spending the weekend camping, swimming, snorkeling, checking out the island, etc.  

-Kangaroo Island.  This is a small island in Perth with a bunch of wild kangaroos living on it.  Some of Port Lodge checked it out a few months ago and saw a bunch of wild kangaroos and got some really cool pictures of them.

-Surf lessons.  You can pay like $75 to spend the day learning how to surf and I realllly want to try it! If this happens it'll probably be during study week.

-Sunday Session.  This is a Freo specialty where people spend all Sunday afternoon at bars and cafes drinking basically.  It's supposed to be great fun and somehow me and a bunch of my friends haven't been to one yet.  This is a must.

-E-Shed Markets.  A different set of markets across town that I haven't been to yet because we always go to the Fremantle Markets.  If I don't get to it it won't be the end of the world because apparently the Freo Markets are a lot better, but I kind of just want to check it out.

-Turkish restaurant.  There's a couple Turkish restaurants here that I always pass and the food looks so yummy but I haven't been to one yet.  Preference to the one with the picture of the Genie from Aladdin on the sign.  I really just want a kebab, is that so much to ask?

-Red Bull Air Race.  This is another one that should definitely be happening.  On November 1 & 2 "twelve of the world's most talented pilots will compete against each other in a race based on speed, precision, and skill" over the skies of Perth (yeah that was from the website).  It's the first study weekend, so I definitely want to go.

-Pizookie.  For those of you non-3 Westerners, pizookie is an amazing dessert of amazingness that basically consists of a pan of half baked cookie dough covered with vanilla ice cream.  Reserved for the most horrendous of days/weeks.  I mentioned it at the beginning of the semester and people have really been wanting to try it but we've just never gotten around to it.  But I think it might be happening this weekend what with all the stuff we have due...so excited.

And that's all I've got for now!

Margaret River Highlights

Yes I should be working on any one of my 3 major papers due on Friday (8000 words...count 'em), but I figure since I haven't posted about our Margaret River bus trip I should probably go ahead and do that before I forget about stuff I want to mention. SO. Here were the highlights:

-Having a bus completely to ourselves. There were 16 of us and we had a bus for probably about 18 people so it worked out perfectly.

-Our crazy Italian Australian bus driver Enzo. Basically the first thing he said to us was "The only rule on this trip is that there are no rules." The second was "Do you guys like beer?" We were sort of stunned for about .2 seconds, then burst out laughing because he obviously didn't know us. He was really chill and let us have input about our schedule and where we wanted to go and didn't care how loud we were on the bus...which leads me to my next highlight:

-Obnoxiously loud singalongs on the bus. Backstreet Boys, Spice Girls, basically any other 90's song you can think of...we pretty much relived our childhoods through music. This was after the brewery stop, if that helps you get the picture...

-Our first beach stop. Enzo bought a footy first thing that morning, so a bunch of us kicked it around for a while (which, for the record, is a lot harder and more painful to do without shoes) and then about 8 of us played a game of American football with it. So fun!

-Brewery. Ok yes, we might have been slightly inebriated, but I really did like trying all the different kinds of Australian beers...well, some more than others. It was definitely a good experience for someone like me who thinks all beer tastes pretty much the same. Note: I now realize it does not.

-Taking crazy amounts of pictures at the gorgeous beach. Also post-brewery. Some pictures are better than others, as you might imagine.

-First hostel experience. The first hostel we stayed at was nicer than I expected, and the room we had was clean and bug-free (YAY). And I got a bottom bunk! Score. The only downside was a higly erratic shower (both temperature-wise and waterstream-wise) the next morning.

-State capital discussion over dinner. Yes, between five of us (the ones who chose the pizza place for dinner) I think we went through all of them. This all began when an Australian sitting a table away from us asked us if we were from America and then proceeded to ask something about Sacramento (I don't remember why...the effects of the brewery and the day hadn't quite worn off yet). This also led to a three-way bet about state capitals which I lost because apparently the capital of Massachusetts isn't Lexington. My fourth grade teacher Mrs. Leonard would be so ashamed (along with probably everyone else who knows me...) Fortunately the winner of the bet has failed to remember to collect his $5 (knock on wood)

-Learning how to box. Sort of. My friend Kevin does Bengal Bouts back at Notre Dame and I seem to have a hidden desire to get in a fight so when we got back from dinner he started teaching me how to box! Better not mess with me :)

-Winery. The next morning our first stop was a winery and even though I didn't feel quite up to tasting, the scenery in the vineyard was gorgeous. AND across the street I saw my first wild kangaroo! About time.

-Scenery in general. Honestly, I've never driven through more beautiful scenery than in Southwest Australia. Everywhere we drove was just rolling hills, incredibly green pastures, random trees, little ponds, sheep, etc. Honestly, I would have been happy just sitting in the bus the entire time listening to music and looking out the window. I was enthralled. It's hard for me to even describe.

-Bicentennial Tree. This is a 75 metre tree in the middle of a national park FILLED with huge trees (think Redwood forest in California). But this tree is special because they actually allow the public to climb it! The only catch is that the ladder consists of rebar rods stuck into the tree in the shape of a spiral staircase. Yeah. No magic safety net, no harnesses. Just some metal rods. Some of our group decided not to climb at all, some climbed all the way to the top lookout tower, and some (like me) got to the platform about halfway, took some pictures, and decided (since it started HAILING and 75 metres is reallllly high when it's windy, wet, and...well, really all the time) that that was far enough. The climb down was definitely more intense than the climb up because you really have to look down to make sure you get your foot on the bar. Rule of thumb: keep all four limbs touching the bars at all times. Honestly it was probably the most nervous I've been in a long time.

-Treetop walk. Yes, by then it was cold and windy and rainy and at the time we were all complaining about all of the above, but walking on the platforms in the canopy of the forest was a really awesome and unique experience. Definitely glad we went ahead and did it.

-Scenery. Did I mention the scenery? It deserves another mention.

-Cheese-eating on the bus. Looking back I'm not entirely sure why someone had 10+ slices of cheese with them on the bus, but somehow we found out and proceeded to eat them on the bus ride to our second hostel. It was HILARIOUS at the time. Really.

-Exploring the town of Albany, WA. Sunday morning we got up early to walk around the town, and I'm really glad we did because it was such an adorable little mountain town. Not too much to see, but it really reminded me of the North Georgia mountains and made me miss home and fall. I felt like I should be seeing the leaves changing colors, but since it's spring here that obviously wasn't about to happen.

-Gap and natural bridge. One of our stops Sunday morning. The gap was just how it sounds: a huge (deep) gap in the rocks where water crashed up into. It's hard for me to describe and a lot cooler if you look at the pictures. The land bridge is about the same - a huge rock formation that basically formed a bridge above the water. Definitely not a bridge to walk on though. The whole area was gorgeous and really looked like it could have been straight out of Lord of the Rings.

-Blowholes.  Another stop on Sunday. We had to walk what seemed like forever from the bus to get to them, but once we got there they were so cool! Its pretty much just these tiny slivers in huge cliffs where mist and air are blown up through them super fast when the waves crash into them. And the waves were HUGE that day so when we sat over the holes and the waves crashed into the rocks, it seriously felt like we were riding a roller coaster, that's how fast the air was pushed up through them.

-The scenery. Yes, again.

Ok this turned out to be a lot longer than I thought it was going to be, so now I need to go keep working on my paper(s)!

I mean, I'll probably be posting again soon because it's a great way to procrastinate...

Because I take ridiculous amounts of pictures....

...I have actually run out of space on my Picasa account.  I've used 94% of my 1 GB, so I'm going to have to use a different site for the rest of my pictures while I'm here.  I've uploaded my Margaret River pictures to Snapfish and I'm going to try to post the link in here, but I'm not sure if it will work the same way Picasa does.  So if you can't see the album by clicking the link, or it asks you for login info or anything, just let me know and give me your email address and I can share the album that way.

http://www1.snapfish.com/photolibrary/t_=146642778

Spring Break Recap Part 1: Broome

So whoa.  I'm now back from the most exotic, exciting, and exhausting spring break I have ever experienced.  Just the thought of recapping it all is daunting, but I'm going to do my best.  Here goes...

Last Saturday morning was our plane ride to Broome, Western Australia.  My ticket was for a middle seat and my friend Kevin was supposed to be sitting in the window seat next to me, but since I got to the row first I stole his seat because I wanted to take pictures on the way into Broome (still kind of feel bad about it...oops lol).  I did sleep through lunch though, so I guess karma found a way to catch up to me.  I woke up before our descent to red dirt as far as the eye could see, which was fasciniating in and of itself, but the real show began when all of a sudden out of nowhere appeared the coastline with brilliant blue water and white sand beaches.  It was without a doubt the most amazing view from a plane I've ever seen.  (And actually this reminds me, I put pictures up from the trip on my Picasa site).  

After we landed, we walked through the airport (which looked more like a cabana than an airport) and boarded the bus for a 5-minute bus ride to the NDA Broome Campus.  It was tiny, and empty since they were on break as well that week, and we stayed at the student hostel on campus there the first night.  That afternoon they (being our trip leaders - 3 professors) took us to Cable Beach, which is supposed to be ranked one of the top 5 beaches in the world, and it definitely lived up to the hype.  The tide was out so it seemed like there was a mile of sand before the water even started.  After we walked around taking pictures, me, Katie, Andria, and Sam went on a 30-minute camel ride!  Katie and I were at the very back of the group on a camel named Aslan - the oldest of the group at 16, and the biggest at over one ton!  It was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  

After the camel ride, we went back to hang out with the rest of the group and played in the water for a while just fighting with with waves, which was actually pretty exhausting.  Then we all took some sunset pictures before heading back to the campus.  That night we basically gorged ourselves on pizza since we were starving, then a bunch of us played Pictionary and a couple other games for a while before going to bed.  It was a ton of fun; I completely forgot how much I love that game!

The next day we met up with our Aboriginal guides (a husband and wife team, Colin and Maria, and two of their sons, Bruce and Phillip) and started the drive into the Kimberley (the Outback).  We made a couple stops along the way: at an Aboriginal church and at an Aboriginal community for lunch.  After about 4 hours of driving we ended up at camp, which had an amazing view of a bay.  We put our stuff in our tents and then just hung out until dinner, which was some kind of stew that Maria made.  After dinner once the sun went down we all sat around the campfire and had what Peta, our head professor, called "College of Knowledge," which basically entailed asking us thought-provoking questions and going around the circle and answering them.  What really stuck with me that first night though was just how incredible the night sky was; I've never seen so many stars in my life.  I just couldn't stop looking at them.

We got up with the sun the net morning (aka between 5:30 and 6), had breakfast, and then spent a few hours talking with Colin about Aboriginal culture, which turned out to be a really interesting discussion.  Then we packed lunches and loaded up in the trucks to drive to a site where we saw 7000-year-old Aboriginal footprints and one of the most amazing beaches I've ever seen.  And after we ate we got to go in and swim.  The only bummer about the day was that my sunglasses broke :(  Not good for a vacation in the blazing heat.  Later we went back to camp to chill out for a while, then went to an overlook for the sunset.  The landscape looked like something out of Jurassic Park or a car commercial or something - huge red rocks and hills.

Day 3 consisted of going to another Aboriginal community to talk to one of the main elders named Uncle Bundy, who taught us how to make spears and let us get into groups and make our own spears.  Basically they gave us the branches and we had to heat them over the fire, straighten them, and sharpen one edge into a point.  What amazes me is that they still hunt with spears and boomerangs, not guns.  It really almost felt like stepping back in time.  He also showed us how to make and throw hunting boomerangs, which I think aren't actually supposed to come back to you.  Pretty much all the rest of the day was spent at camp practicing throwing the spears at a cardboard target.

On our last full day, they took us to an area that sort of reminded me of the marshes of Georgia.  I think it was a bay or something, except the tide was wayyy out, so basically we were trekking through mud.  They showed us how to grind up a certain root to mix with mud so that when you put it in a fishing hole, it makes the fish come close to the surface for air so it's easier to spear them or even catch the with your bare hands.  They guys of the group spend a while trying to catch the fish, and the girls watched and took pictures.  Then Phillip took some of us over to some rocks to learn how to collect the oysters that are embedded in them.  Eventually the tide started coming in (way in) and we left to go back to camp and eat lunch and try some of the fish they guys had caught.  After lunch we went to a hatchery where we saw a bunch of tanks where fish were being bred, then went to another beach to have a swim.  That night we had a BBQ and I tried kangaroo for the first time...it was actually really delicious.

Our last morning basically just consisted of getting up, packing up, and driving back to Broome to catch our flight back.  All in all it was an amazing trip and definitely one that I'll never forget.  I know I had some more things I wanted to say about it, but right now I'm really tired so I think I'll just leave this post as it is for now and maybe come back to it later.

Like I said, pictures are up on my Picasa page; enjoy!  Part 2 of my spring break will be posted within the next day or so hopefully :)