Yea...

So some of you may have wondered why I havn't updated in a bit.

...

It's because nothing interesting or noteworthy has happened.

Went through the last few lessons of class, had 'study time' that I half tuned into, I've eaten, and slept, and not much else. I just too the Final Exam a few hours ago, and now I'm wondering what I'm going to do with these extra two days of free time before I hop on a plane.

Oh well, I'll figure something out, probably go for a few walks around the area, maybe with people if I can find some to come along. I'm not going to worry about any 'last blasts' at all, just gonna kinda chill out till I leave... may not update again till I'm home.

It's been fun, can't wait to be home!

PS. I love you Hannah

Surfed

YAY, another post.

MMK, so, monday, despite some efforts, was not really all that fun. We went to the botanical gardens, and I tried a little to enjoy it, but I just wasn't in a great mood. Most if not all of you know how I can get sometimes, just a general downer. It was kinda pretty, but it's winter here, so the off season for gardens, and it showed. As I said, I wasn't in a great mood to begin with. I could probably enjoy it in the right company, so if I ever return here with said company, I'll likely go back.

Tuesday! (today) we had a class on australian sport, including criket (sp?), Aussie-rules football, and Net-ball. Criket is most likened to baseball, Aussie rules football like american football, only much more brutal, harder, and much faster. Netball is kinda like basketball. As mentioned before, I've also seen a little bit of rugby. After all these aussie games... american sports look like sissy-stuff to me.

Then the great surf lesson!!!!!!!!

WOOO!!!

okay, if it isn't obvious yet, I loved it. Surfing was GREAT, and if I lived near a beach, I'd take it up as a hobby on getting home. Someone else took some pictures, the best of me I will put up as my facebook profile picture for you all to see. The only thing I couldn't get the hang of was spotting waves, and then timing my paddling and standing up right for when they passed. Part of that blame goes on not being able to wear my glasses of course, but it'd take time and experience to get a good hang of.

6 days left till I come home, and still greatly looking forward to it, but I had a great day :)

PS. I love you Hannah!!!

My slurpie is gone...

Mmk... so I last posted thursday, and it is now sunday, I should probably say something, eh?

Well... Friday night there was a party for all the ICMS students as a beginning of semester thing, and we were allowed to attend. I did, and people actually convinced me to dance a little bit. It wasn't bad, but as any of you can guess with me, not my scene at all. I ended up leaving early and going to sleep.

Saturday I spent some time in the computer lab, did one of my assignments, chatted a bit, and then went down to the beach. I ran into some of the people from our group, just in time to get to go to a rugby game with the teacher that came along. We went and stayed for about half the game (she had somewhere else to be and I didn't want to find my way back to the school alone with a huge crowd of people around me). The game was good, much better than american football. Actually, after watching that, american football seems like a sissy sport.

I ended up missing dinner though, and lived off an apple one of my roomies had saved from a previous lunch.

Got up this morning, no plan in mind, had brekkie, got online a bit, and went down to the food and wine fest going on near manly beach. I had no food, or wine (it cost $5 a cup, screw that) but I did have a slurpie. Apparently there's an organization here in Australia called the Official Sport Of Slurping, or OSOS. Got a good slurpie, and was sad when it was gone.

Went for a good hike, forgot to bring my camera, but I think I have pictures of that general area already anyway. I should probably work more on my paper... meh, miss you all, just one week left...

PS. I love you Hannah!

GHOST TOUR

Okay... to start with, I still have yet to see a ghost. And, we're going to start with wednesday, not thursday.

Well... okay, wednesday was boring, I didn't do much, lets go ahead straight to thursday.

Had class in a hotel conference room instead of at the school, because the room we use was taken. Lots of candy was consumed, and we talked about Ned Kelly. Ned, by the way, was not a cook, nor did he grill anything, and he definitely did not own a steakhouse. He was, however, a folk-hero-villain who caused a bunch of trouble, killed some cops, and was beheaded.

Oh, now I remember what we did wednesday, we watched a documentary style film, 'ten canoes' that tells some old aboriginal stories, kinda interesting, if you want details then ask me when I'm back.

Anyway, Thursday night, went on a 'ghost tour' of the old quarintene station not far from here. It was interesting... and I saw absolutely nothing I would call paranormal. T'was a little disappointing, oh well.

Today, went to class, discussed... uh... crap... what did we discuss... oh, yea, ANZAC, the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps. Looked over stuff they did, and monuments from the war casualties. Then I watched a movie that centered around one of their more remembered battles at Galipoli in Turkey during the first world war. Now I'm typing this.... yea... can't wait to be home

PS. I love you Hannah!

Monday was... not interesting, meh, whatever. Yesterday, Tuesday, was.

We went first to the old olympic stadiums from the 2000 games. They're still in use for recreation, performances, and the like. It was cool, I got a few pictures, we didn't stay long, only stopped as it was on the way to the blue mountains.

Next, we stopped at a small zoo-like place, which had only australian native animals as far as I saw. Most of the animals were rescued, generally from things like being hurt by traffic. I got to pet a Koala, and to feed and pet a few kangaroos, yes, of course I got pictures. They were really cute up close, and I love them as animals. Actually, I'll have to take back monday not being interesting, we learned about australian ecology. The reason Kangaroos hop is because it's evolutionarily advantageous (duh) by being the most effecienty means of animal transportation possible. At low speeds, hopping is no more effecient than quadrapedal running, but at high speeds it is MUCH more effecient. Since Australia has a very harsh environment in which most of the plantlife is inedible, this is invaluable. Also, Koala's sleep for about 20 hours out of the day, and eat whenever they are awake. They have to sleep this much because straight eucalyptus leaves are toxic, and their body needs what little energy it gets from them to process out the toxins. Wombats are also similarly lazy, but we didn't spend much time on them.

After that, we went to the blue mountains themselves, and went for a short hike (only about two hours, bah) I got lots of pictures, it was beautiful... not much to say.

Our tour guide took us to a place with a very nice candy store I got some candy, and then got us free dinner at a nightclub as part of our tour. None of us stayed longer than it took to eat though, didn't wait around for the advertised entertainment of the night... I tried the cocktail 'sex on the beach' (vodka, peach schnops, cranberry juice, orange juice, and pineapple juice) it was really good, but didn't feel like I was drinking alchohol at all. Was a fun day overall.

Free day today, so I finally got started on my paper, or at least, drew up a little bit of an outline and got some sources to look over. Maybe I'll have a few pages of actual writing by the end of this weekend? hopefully?

Anyway, feeling a bit homesick, miss you all, and miss being able to eat lunch without wearing formal stuff... I'll probably update again in a few days, till then, g'day mate.

PS I love you Hannah!

so, I updated before the weekend right? Here's a quick summary of what happened;

Saturday, a group of us bought 'see sydney' passes, which are a cheaper way of seeing several things in sydney and sydney area. With them in hand, we went to the opera house and on a tour of it. It was interesting and cool, and much smaller than I expected. The biggest theatre in it only holds approx. 2,600 people, the second biggest, the opera room, only holds about 1,600.

After that we went to the local zoo, and stuck around the australian animals, figured that we can see the others anywhere. Didn't get to see a platypus though, we couldn't find it in the exhibit. I did get to see a koala, kangaroo, and a few other native australian animals.

After that, we got lost on our way to the aquarium, eventually found it, and it was cool. They have two exhibits where you go under the water in a tunnel and look around you to see the fish. It was really cool, but the ramps down to those displays were definitely not. After it we went to a pub just down the street, I payed $8 for a single bottle of heineken, and most of our group went back to the school (including me).

Sunday, I mostly just chilled out around the school, would have updated, but I was waiting till after the rock concert I'm about to tell you about.

We bought the tickets before the tour, me and the other two guys John and Ian that is. The concert started at 8:30, it was an opening band called Palace of Fire and the featured band Battle. The opening band wasn't bad overall, but I did NOT like the lead singer.

The featured band, Battle (maybe it was Battles?) sucked. At least from where I was sitting it sounded like disorganized noise more than half the time. It was good occasionally, but got really repeatitive.

So I didn't like the concert, and when we got back to the warf (we take a ferry between where we stay and sydney) the last ferry back had left twenty minutes previous. I cursed a bit, we figured out where we had to go for the night bus, and had to sit and wait for it for almost an hour.

On the bus, we realized we didn't know when it would actually be back in manly, and by my lucky guessing, I picked the stop that was closest to the school to ask the bus driver when we'd be in manly. It was still a fifteen minute walk though... ended up getting to bed around 2 am, when the concert had gotten out at about 11:15. Shitty performances, shitty time getting back, boring day previous... I had a shitty sunday. Oh well, life goes like that sometimes. I'll get to go hiking tomorrow at least.

Class isn't bad, interesting stuff really. For example, hopping, as kangaroos do, is the most effecient form of movement that an animal can evolve.

PS, I love you Hannah, and miss you!

Second Update!

So yesterday we had class (yea, boring) and went to a convict museum of how life was back in the day when Australia was being founded. It was kinda interesting, but meh. The highlight of the day was the evening :P. There was a sorta party thing, and a performance by a crocodile man who brought several animals with him, including a cukobarra (sp?), a funnelweb spider, a small python, a young anaconda, a larger python, and a caimen (sp?) which is like a small crocodile.

I got pictures holding the cuccobarra, the larger python, and the caimen. I'd upload them to here, but I'm too lazy to try and make the camera work with the school computers, I'll upload good pics when I'm home.

Today we had class (still boring) and went to paraliment house. That was a bit interesting, and then me and two of my classmates went to one of the 'malls', I didn't buy anything, but it was a nice place, definitely a LOT nicer than what we have back home. Everything is really expensive here, even after the exchange rate.

I miss you all, and while I'm enjoying myself, part of me can't wait to be home again. Love you all. One of the things I miss I guess is the open time and doing things on my own. Plus, my roommates snore, so that makes sleeping less than perfect. Oh well. I'll cya all later!

PS. I love you Hannah

Where the bloody hell are you ya' old bastard?

Hey! so, as I told mom, and as mom insisted would not be the case, my cell phone does NOT work here!

I am working on finding the time to buy a phone card and a few other items, but our schedule is jam packed, I'm crunched for time just to be able to write this, but we should be getting more free time as the week goes on.

My initial plans to buy a kukri whilst here may have to be abandoned, apparently Australian laws are a little more stringent on weaponry. Oh well, I can still get a cool hat or something.

So me and my two roommates have decided that we'll probably be getting up around 6 am each morning for a walk, maybe a jog once we get used to the slopes. We've done it twice now walking, first day we got lost a little, and today we took a nice walk up to a place called the north head. There is a gorgeous view up there, and I can't wait to show you all pictures. I wish you could have been there with me Hannah.

Class has been interesting, Australia is even younger than america though as far as the european culture invasion. We've gotten to learn a decent amount about the aboriginals too. My team did alright on the scavenger hunt yesterday, and I now feel comfortable getting around sydney and manly areas. I'm having a bunch of fun, but I definitely miss you people back home.

The cocktail party last night was a bit 'meh', you know me, it only took about forty five minutes before I was sitting in a corner sipping on a glass of wine. Me and some of the other abroad students left early and went down to the warf for food, it was fun. I still need to get some australian currency, since some places don't take credit cards apparentely :(.

Well, that's all I can think of for now, hopefully I can update more often.

PS. I love you Hannah, and I miss you already.

Not gone yet!

Okay, I leave Saturday, and this is just a preliminary post to get stuff going, I'm not sure how often I'll be able to post while I'm there.