this week in review...

Things are definitely slowing down here. The first few weeks here were jam packed with new experiences, trips, etc but now I'm definitely starting to feel like this is my home and we really haven't been doing many touristy things recently.

I had my first paper due last Monday--a 1000 word film review on Romper Stomper which is about neo-Nazi skinheads in Melbourne and stars Russell Crowe. All in all it was extremely violent and pretty hard to watch although they found a way to interwine a love story in all the madness which made it interesting for sure. I also had to go see another movie about gang violence for my multicultural class called The Combinations. It's about the gang wars between the Lebanese and white Australians and was also extremely violent and grotesque. On Thursday I had to see a play for my film class called The Removalists which takes place in a police station--also very violent. Last night my friends and I watched a movie called Taken which is about trafficking of unsuspecting (American) tourists overseas--great.

Not everything I did this week involved violence, I promise (mom)! On Friday Kate, Brian, Justin and I went to Manly beach. I've been a couple times now and its definitely my favorite so far. You have to take a ferry to get there which takes about 25 minutes and then to get to the beach you walk down this little street lined with really cool shops and restaurants. The beach itself is a lot less touristy compared to Bondi and much smaller which is nice because you don't have to worry about getting your bag stolen when you go in the water. It's rained a couple nights this week so the water was considerably colder than the last time I'd been there so I spent most of the day getting an excellent tan :) Afterwards we went to eat at this little burger joint where I ate the biggest/best cheeseburger of my life!

Saturday Becca, Lauren, Emily and I went to this place called Paddington which is known for its markets. Unfortunately when we got there the markets were closing down, so we didn't get to go to them, but there was still TONS of shopping to be done. Most of the stores are on Oxford St. which is known as the "gay" street in Sydney so there were some really funny stores and definitely some interesting characters. After a few hours of shopping (I got a super cute dress) we headed back and ate at one of our favorite places--Broadway Cafe. They have happy hour everyday from 3-8 where you can get $5 gourmet pizzas and either a jug of beer or sangria for $10--delish! Saturday night we all stayed in and took it easy which was very much needed by my body.

So, I think that's pretty much all for the week. I'll try to update more frequently and definitely if something super exciting happens! We leave for New Zealand in two weeks and next Saturday we're going wine tasting and to a rugby game, so I'm sure I'll have much to report in the next couple weeks. Stay tuned!

Oh yeah! Also, Kate and I have found a way to make a little money! The vending machine across the hall from us has been broken for about 2 weeks, but people still put money in it. So, after they leave Kate and I go out there and pluck it out with a variety of hair clips and a butter knife and so far have made over $14!...Pretty good, right? :) Here's a picture of us in action:
Okay, that's all for real.
Love and miss you all
xoxoxoxox

Update:

I still have NOT eaten vegemite.

That is all.

Things That I Miss

(Excluding friends and family of course--I hope that's a given =])

1. MILK!--The milk here is NOTHING like the milk at home which is so so sad for me because I absolutely love drinking milk and will not be able to for 4 and a half months. At home I drink milk with breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, after I work out, when I'm bored, all day, everyday, so it's been really tough not having any--I think my bones are starting to shrivel due to calcium deficiency..So mom, when I get home all I want are like 3 gallons of milk in the fridge okay? thanks!

2. SLEEP--Milk and sleep--probably my two favorite things. I don't think anyone at home would believe me if I told you how well I've been functioning on little to no sleep. The night life is so different here because the bars are open all night long where as at home they only stay open until 2 and then you go home. Here we stay out until at least 3 at least 4 nights a week. It doesn't really help the situation that my days, even when I do have class, are completely stress-free..I know, I know, rough life

3. MY BED--my bed here is probably the most uncomfortable surface I have ever slept on..that includes floors, couches, car seats, with zoe on my head, etc. Probably another reason I don't sleep--I try to spend as little time as possible in that bed! First of all, since Kate and I put our beds on the floor, we don't have box springs. Second, the springs in the mattress poke into just about every part of my body. So, overall, a pretty unpleasant sleeping experience...YUCK


4. MONEY--quickly AND surely my money supply is depleting! It's so hard to have to buy all your food, transportation, etc. all the time when you're not making any money. At home I spent a lot of money on those things too, but I was always babysitting or working and at least making a little income. Here--nothing. I've been thinking about looking for some part time work, just to have a little extra money. Worrying about money is probably the only thing that has stressed me out since I've been here, which is probably good--can't be all fun and games...just mostly :)



5. COOKING/my mom's cooking/baking/kate's baking/etc--It's really hard to think of things to make when you only have one pot, one pan, and a faulty oven. I've wanted to cook so many different dinners for my friends, but realize we just don't have the right stuff to do it and it's not worth buying more things, so we resort to the same dinners all the time. Don't get me wrong, we've eaten some very yummy dinners here, but I definitely miss variety.

6. LUCY JEAN, tige and zoe--while I do not miss having zoe sleep on my head every night, I really do miss those snuggley little guys. Hopefully they miss me too....:)


ps! for all the friends and fam that i OF COURSE miss too, if you want a postcard, send me your address!

my apologies..

Sorry to those who were waiting for updates on this thing...i've come to realize that i hate writing blogs! This past week has been pretty uneventful--just been getting used to my classes (yes, i do go to classes). By now i've been to all my classes at least once and i like all of them..well, i like micro theory as much as one could like micro theory, but in general it's a pretty good class.

Last Sunday I went on a field trip with my sports class to this place where they play "lawn bowling." Lawn bowling, for those of you who don't know, is essentially bocci ball taken a little bit more seriously. There were 6 teams (i think) and each team plays each other several times until the semi-finals and then the finals. There's a small white ball and 8 or so bigger balls and the object is to stand at one end of the field, roll the big ball and try to get it as close to the white ball as possible. The tricky part is that the bigger balls are weighted on one side so you have to aim to the right or left of the little ball (the heavier side always faces the inside) and hope that it curves enough, isn't thrown too hard and gets closer to the white ball than the team you're playing against. Then the scoring is done basically the same as in bocci ball.

Next Thursday I'm going to see a play (The Removalists) for my film and theatre class. It's set in a 1970's police office, but that's pretty much all I know about it. In class we read the first few pages and then had to draw what we thought the scene looked like--harder than it sounds as it turns out. My police man ended up looking like frosty the snow man...hmm...
Anyway I really like going to plays, and the playhouse is right on the harbour, so I think it'll be really fun.

Other than that, not much has been going on. I can't believe I've been here for over a month already! The time is really flying by which sometimes makes me really sad because I never want to leave here and sometimes I can't wait to be back in Boston. I've made really good friends with 3 girls on the trip who all happen to live in Massachusetts so we keep talking about all the stuff we're going to do when we get back to Boston and over the summer. I'm pretty excited to have more than 2 friends when I get back (shout out to LJ and Kate =])!
In 3 weekends (not including this one) we're going to New Zealand and I absolutely cannot wait! We're thinking of renting a car so we can drive around outside of Auckland and explore a little bit. We're also going sky diving while we're there which completely freaks me out and I'm probably going to cry/pee my pants the whole way up and down (sorry to the guy who will be strapped on my back...and mom, I was going to tell you after I went because I knew you'd be freaking out, but I figure now we can just freak out together! :)

I think that's all the news for now..I'm going to follow this blog with a "things that I miss" blog..which I guess will actually show up before this one, but whatever..

take back....

So everything I just said about my schedule is actually not true anymore. I just switched my classes around again (for the 3rd time) and by now I'm pretty sure the International Student Office staff know my friends and me by name. Anyway, I decided after going to my Production Economics class on Friday that I was going to be in way over my head. From what I gathered, I think the class is the second part in a series of classes for a very specific econ major, which I am not in and therefore I decided to drop it. I also dropped the Ancient Greece class I was in because the only reason I took it in the first place was because a bunch of my friends from the trip were also taking it. Most of them decided to drop it, so of course I did too. Clearly I WOULD jump off a bridge if my friends did :)

Here is my newly revised schedule:
Monday-Australian Film, Theatre & Learning 2-4
Tuesday-Sport and Learning in Australian Culture 9-10
Intermediate Microeconomics 11-12
Wednesday-Intermediate Microeconomics 11-1
Multicultural Learning and Teaching 2-4 (which has actually been postponed and
is not starting until April 22nd.....bummer....)
Thursday-Sport and Learning in Australian Culture 10-12
Friday-Nothing!

Tough schedule, I know :)
All but the econ class will transfer as general electives at Northeastern which I need a bunch of anyway. They also all include field trips! The Film and Theatre class goes to two plays, the sports class goes bowling, to rugby games, etc, etc. All of them sound really fun/interesting and I think it will be a good chance to see and do things that I wouldn't necessarily do on my own here.

In other news, my dad offered to get me a new camera (thanks dad!!) so I've been looking around in the mall across the street and will definitely have one by this weekend. You can expect to see A LOT more pictures on here as well as on facebook that I actually took..exciting!

I think that's all for now. Hope everyone is well
Lots of love
xoxox

Classes, etc.

The first week of classes is over! It has definitely been the most stressful/frustrating week since I've been here...which isn't that hard to do because its almost impossible to get stressed here, but this week was pretty rough. I was enrolled in 4 classes when I got here that I picked while I was still at Northeastern. We were told to just pick any classes and that it would be really easy to change them once we got here. So I got my schedule (called a timetable here) and wasn't too worried about the 2 econ classes and 1 business class that were on it.
Early on Monday morning a couple of my friends and I went to get in line at the International Student Office in order to change our schedules around and switch in/out of classes. We got there at 8 and waited in line for about an hour and a half. I was only changing my business class to an Australian multi-cultural class, so it wasn't a problem. Then I went to print out my timetable and in HUGE letters at the bottom of the sheet it said CLASH. The way the timetables work here is that you don't get to choose what time/day your classes are. There are also almost no classes that have quotas, so there are usually a bunch of sections offered for each class. So, if you don't like the schedule that you got or it clashes, you have to go online to your timetable and keep refreshing the page until you get the times and days that you want, or that work the best. When I did this I realized that the multi-cultural class that I wanted to take clashed with one of my other classes and it was only offered on that day so I had to go back on Tuesday and get it switched again. I got it changed to Australian Theatre, Film and Learning which only meets on Mondays 2-4 for lecture and does not have any tutorials (should be pretty tough =]).
Most classes have two hours of lecture a week. It could be two days of one hour lecture or one day of two hour lecture. Then almost every class also has a tutorial once a week or either one or two hours. These are much smaller classes up to 25 or so students where the lectures can be over 600.
So, here is my schedule as of today:

Monday: Australian Theatre, Film and Learning Lecture 2-4
Tuesday: Intermediate Micro Lecture 9-11
Foundations for Ancient Greece Lecture 2-3
Wednesday: Production Economics Workshop 10-12
Foundations for Ancient Greece Lecture 2-3
Foundations for Ancient Greece Tutorial 4-5
Thursday: Intermediate Micro Tutorial 10-12
Friday: Production Economics Lecture 10-12

So far I have only been to the Ancient Greece class and the Production Econ class. Ancient Greece seems really interesting, but I think it's going to be a lot of work. The econ class as of the first day seems REALLY over my head and I'm considering dropping it and picking something else. When my teacher said that we have a math exam in that class next Friday on "the stuff I think you should be able to do for this class" that's worth 10% of my final grade I think I had a small heart attack. All reading should know that a. I'm terrible at math (hence why I've taken it 6 times since being in college) and b. I'm terrible at tests! Math + Tests = Bad News...maybe I'm not so bad after all =]
That's pretty much all I've been doing all week. Trying to figure out which classes I'm taking and trying to find the building they're in which has proved to be a bit of a challenge made even more difficult by the fact that there is NO time between classes and it's just customary to start class 5 minutes late and end 5 minutes early. Luckily I don't have any classes back to back.
Saturday night was the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras which was a lot fun. We went to the parade, but couldn't actually see anything because there were so many people and we went back to the apartment where we had been at all day and just hung out there for the night. Lots of fun!

Okay, I'm on my way to the beach now, so more later!
xoxoxo