Bleh...

This morning I did not want to get up, so I put my alarm on for another 15 minutes. :) I was still tired, but forced myself to get up. I had my Contemporary Indigenous Issues class at 9:30, in which we talked about the readings that we had over the past week and she explained them. I then went to the bookstore to see if the unit reader for my other Indigenous Studies class was printed yet, but I didn't see it. I checked online later and he sent an announcement saying it wouldn't be done until Thursday or Friday. After I got back, it was lunchtime, but I only had an apple because I need to go to the store to get more food. I also took a nap because I was still exhausted. When I woke up, I read the second article for my biology class, since I didn't read it last night. (I watched mass at St Francis of Assisi's website since I haven't been to a Catholic mass since being here)

At 3:00, I had my tutorial (tute) for my class that I had this morning. We introduced ourselves to a partner with things like favorite ice cream and star sign, then our partners introduced us to the class. After that, our lecturer, Michelle, introduced herself and told us how she came to teach Indigenous Studies since she is a white Australian. We talked in our groups about the articles that we read and then she gave us time to work on our critical reflections that we have to write for the class on the two articles we just read. After about 30 minutes of writing, she had us go into new groups and talk about what we had written and we talked as a class about it, too.

After class, I came back to work on some more homework and readings, which is pretty much all I've done. (well, that and get distracted on the computer :P) I now have a headache and I'm tired, so I'll probably go to bed early tonight. (Also, I have an 8:30 class, followed by a 3 hour class!)

Another uneventful day...

It was another boring day, as all I did was homework. I woke up around 10:30, and started doing my readings for my class tomorrow, Contemporary Indigenous Issues. We had two readings and study questions to go along with the readings. I'm pretty sure we don't have to turn them in or anything, so I just jotted down some notes to answer the questions if we have to talk about them. The first reading was boring, and I was still tired, so I ended up falling asleep a few times and just taking short naps to get through it. The second reading was pretty interesting, though.

After that homework, I took a break. I ate lunch/dinner (since it was at about 3) and watched an episode of the last season of Survivor that I have yet to see (Vanuatu). I then went online to find the readings for my biology class on Tuesday. I'm glad that I started them today, because there are three and they are long. I only read the first one, which I skimmed because it was about setting up an experiment, the scientific method, and basic statistics problems/gathering data. I learned all of that in my classes before, so it was just a long boring reading and I couldn't help but get distracted online! When I finally finished, I took a shower, and now I'm planning on reading another one of our readings for biology. I told you it wasn't exciting...

Footy!

This morning, I met Corin, Carrie, and Katie, and we went to take the bus to Freo. At the bus stop, we also met up with Matt. We met Isabella there, the woman in charge of the Sustainability part of CIEE, and she took us on a tour of the city and some of it's more sustainable parts. We went to see art galleries, including one that used to be a women's insane asylum. We also walked around town and to the beach. There was actually a wedding going on at one of the areas that we went to.

At around 5, we went to the Fremantle train station and caught up with Paul and most of the other CIEE students that didn't go into Freo with us. We all then went to an Australian Football League footy game. It was between the West Coast Eagles and the Brisbane Lions. They are the two worst teams in the league, but it was still exciting and fun to watch! (They play in an oval, and I couldn't help but think of how awesome it would be to play quidditch there!) I didn't really know what was going on, or the rules, but it was non-stop action and a close game. The lead kept going back and forth, and West Coast was winning up until the last minute when Brisbane scored 6 more points. We also ate dinner there, and it was surprisingly pretty good. The fries are somehow different than the ones in America, but I don't know how. The hamburger also was really good, and had onions cooked in it, although there was gross cold cheese on top. I also figured out a few days ago why the pop tastes funny here... it has sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. I definitely prefer the stuff in the States!

We got back around 9, and a group of us, Corin, Carrie, Katie, Matt, Mike, and I decided to all go over to Mike's flat and we hung out. His flatmate, Tyson, was also there and one of the RAs, Tracie, also came by for a while. Today was a lot of fun, but now I'm exhausted, so I'm hoping my pictures load quickly on flickr and I can go to bed!

It's Friday!

Today, I woke up and went to the student centre to sign up for the Northwest Trip that the study abroad and exchange students can go on. It is a trip during either the first or second non-teaching weeks to the outback and west coast of Western Australia. I really wanted to go, and the doors opened at 8:30, but we couldn't sign up until 9. I went at 8:45, but totally underestimated the number of people that would be in line so early! I can only go on the first one because I have a field exercise for my biology class during the second break, but when it got to me the first trip was already full! I told him that I have to go during the first one, and he told me to have my lecturer email him, and then he'd email me a list of the names of people going on the first one so that I can try to switch with someone. I really hope that I can find someone because the Northwest trip is one of the reasons that I chose Murdoch over other schools in Australia!

After signing up, I went to the bookstore to see if they had the books for one of my classes yet, but they didn't. I then went outside of my next classroom and waited until the class before us got out. I had the second lecture of my biology class today, and we talked about the importance of statistics in biology and randomized samples. It was extremely boring, since I had just taken stats last semester and it was boring then! After class, I came back and I think I just watched tv online all afternoon and evening. I feel like I must have done something else, but I don't think I did. I found a site that I can watch my American tv on, so I spent the day catching up on Psych, SYTYCD, Royal Pains, and an episode of Mythbusters. Tomorrow will be more exciting because I'm doing things with CIEE. Oh, and Paul also started a flickr group for all of the CIEE students this semester at Murdoch to join and post pictures, but so far I'm the only one. Here's a link if you want to view others' photos (that is if anyone else joins and posts!) http://www.flickr.com/groups/cieefall2010/.

Crap, I forgot a title!

I didn't have class again today, but I did wake up at a reasonable time. I didn't really do much in the morning, but when I checked the mail, I got my debit card. I then went to unicredit to have my card activated and then the guild shop (a smaller bookstore that you can get things cheaper at if you are a guild member) to buy a few things. I had to get a lab coat for only two of the labs that I have this semester, which stinks, but I guess I had to do it. I also checked my smartrider card to see if I had registered it right to get the cheaper price, and they said that I had and to just tag on and off in two days to fully register it. As I was walking over to the bookstore, I decided to stop by the table/booth that Murdoch Christians United (MCU) had set up, and they said that they were having a meeting in 5 minutes, so I went to that. It was kind of a small scale of chapel at Hope. There were ~20 people there, and we sang two songs. (One that we often sing in chapel and one that I hadn't heard before) The songs were followed by the guy who seemed to be in charge explaining Deuteronomy and a timeline of the bible. After that, I went to the bookstore to get a few more things that I needed.

When I came back, I read some of my biology reading that I had to do for tomorrow, until ~5:15. At that point, I went over to the village seminar room because the US Consulate for the Perth area came to talk to us and there was 'American food' afterwards. The American food was PB&J, doritos, and oreos. I came back and was going to finish my biology reading, but Carrie and Corin came over and invited me to go to Carrie's flat to watch a movie and they ordered pizza, but I didn't want any. We watched Cop Out, which was a pretty cheesy movie, but I've scene worse. (Whale Rider, anyone?) We also watched a little tv, and now I'm back writing this. I'm going to finish reading my biology and then I'm going to bed because I actually have class tomorrow and I have to sign up for the Northwest Excursion that I want to go on this semester. We have two week long breaks that it is offered in, but I have to do the first because my biology class has a field study during the second one.

This is when it gets boring...

Today, I didn't have any class because we don't have lab during the first week for my biology class. I woke up at 11:30 ish (I love not having to wake up for any reason!) and just went on my computer. I cleaned some of the filth off of the shower floor/walls and then went on my computer some more until I took a shower. I also finished watching A Very Potter Sequel! (which is very good by the way) I needed to go to the store, and at 3:45ish, Corin was done with class so we walked to Cole's. I picked up a few things, and then I came back to my flat. I read some of my readings for class and that's about it. (I told you it was boring, and tomorrow I don't have class either!)

New charger = New post!!!

I got my new charger today, which means that I can finally post again, and I'm in the process of putting my pictures on Flickr, which is taking a long time! My charger broke last Wednesday. It kind of blew up from being in a converter instead of just an adapter, so I had an adventure with that and it ended up costing an arm and a leg, but I finally got it. Luckily I've been writting in my travel journal in case I can't blog that night, so I've got a lot to say that's happened in the past week.

28 July (Wednesday):

We had a CIEE meeting at 10:30 and we met in the office beforehand. They have a whole bunch of stuff left over from previous semesters and I got a hair dryer and straightener for free. We then had a meeting in another classroom, where I have class on Mondays. We discussed some things about culture and he talked about a seminar that he will be teaching this semester for CIEE students on Living and Learning in Australia. It's going to be 1 or 2 US credits and I think it'll be a good opportunity to learn more, so I'm taking it.

After the meeting I went back to my room, and that's when my charger blew up. I tried it in different outlets, to see if the outlet just blew, but it was my charger. Corin, Carrie, and I were going to Perth later, so I was just going to look there, but that proved to not work. I went to a electronics store, but they didn't sell Dell chargers or chargers that worked on Dells and said that no one sells just the chargers. He said I'd have to go to Dell.com to get one shipped to me. When I got back and it seemed like a reasonable time to call my dad, because of the time difference, I called him and had him look for places online or figure out what I could do.

Meanwhile, when we were in Perth, we went shopping and just walking around the city. It's a very nice city, except when we stopped for dinner at a food court and saw some kind of animal crawl into the escalator. When we decided to go back to Murdoch, we were walking toward the train station when Corin and I saw an aboriginal art store. We decided to look around. There was a lot of cool art and I bought an opal ring. The opal is blue and green and looks kind of like mountains during a sunrise or sunset.

29 July (Thursday):

Corin, Carrie, and I went to Cole's to go grocery shopping in the morning before our CIEE student village orientation. I bought chicken, but they didn't have any orange sauce or cayenne pepper sauce, so I got apricot chicken sauce and some other type of hot sauce. The other hot sauce isn't bad, but I definitely miss Frank's Redhot! The apricot chicken sauce is called "I feel like... Chicken Tonight." It made me laugh a lot (it's a family joke)

At 10:30, we had the village meeting since we were going on a trip that weekend and the orientation for everyone in the village was supposed to be on Friday. Afterward we had lunch there, but picky me just at the meet off of a sandwich and some fruit.

Later I went to Carrie's room because she let me charge my computer since she has a dell too. I checked my email and my dad sent me an email of a place near Perth that fixes Dells, so I called them to see if they had chargers. They said they could mail one out to me the next day. It was a generic universal charger, or I could spend more money and wait a week for an actual Dell charger, so I just ordered the universal one. Carrie and I then decided to get our books. First we went to the CIEE office to see if they had them that we could get for free, but they didn't have ones that I needed. I did get a Perth and Western Australia guidebook, though. Next, I tried the guildshop for cheaper second hand books, but they didn't have them either, so I had to go to the bookstore. I bought my books (only one was over $20!) and a Murdoch Uni sweatshirt. One of my classes doesn't have the books yet, though. We walked around campus to try to find all of our classes and then came back to the village. I read some of the guidebook, and read the first lab in my biology class, which doesn't start until next week. I then went to bed early to get ready for our trip.

30 July (Friday):

I woke up at 5:25 to check my email and get ready for my weekend trip with CIEE to a city called Denmark, about 5 or so hours south of Murdoch. The trip was amazing! We left at 6:30 in a big bus and stopped at a gas station for breakfast, I just got a pack of starburst fruitfuls (my new favorite lolly) and ate an apple that I brought. There was also a bull on the loose next to the gas station, which was quite weird. We drove a little further to an aboriginal center called Kojonup. The guy told us about the aborigine history, but he was hard to understand. He also made us billy tea (tea made in a billy can over the fire) and we walked through the rose maze, which I'm sure would have been much prettier when there were actually flowers!

After another drive, we stopped at a local farm to eat our lunch. The view was amazing and there were mountains along the horizon. They also had one of the cutest puppies I have ever seen! I'm not sure what breed it was, but the lady said that the breed is part dingo and they are bred to herd sheep.

We drove some more and got to The Cove, which was an awesome cabin-type place that we were staying at. It was beautiful and the guy and his family built it out of trees that they found that had fallen. We dropped off our stuff and went to Green's pool. I was smart enough to know that it was too cold to go swimming, but most of the crazy people in our group did go in. I put my feet in the water, though, to walk around the giant rocks. The view was again amazing and at the end of our time there, it started raining, and we saw a double rainbow!

After the beach, we went to an alpaca farm and got to feed kangaroos and other animals. The highlight of the trip for me, though, was petting the koalas. It definitely made my life and Paul bought us all a postcard.

We came back and had dinner on the barbie. It was really good, and we got to try kangaroo meat! It was really good, but I didn't notice much of a difference from beef. Afterwards, we all just sat around the fire, played games, or just relaxed until we went to bed.

31 July (Saturday):

We woke up and ate cereal for breakfast. After we had a long hike up a mountain. It was really hard, and I had to stop a lot, but I did make it to all of the places and didn't even hurt myself. (Except my muscles the next day) There were some really beautiful views and I am very proud of myself for making it all the way there and back and going the extra walk back, instead of taking the bus. I took a few pictures at the places where we stopped, but they can never do justice to the actual view.

For lunch, we walked back to the Cove and ate sandwiches. At about 2, we drove a while to go to the Valley of Giants. They had giant old eucalyptus trees and a cool bridge that was suspended at the top of the tree line. It even swung as if you were in the trees, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, however I did wear my motion sick bands. The bridge was also cool because it was very sturdy and designed to move, yet it was put together like a giant K'nex because they couldn't fit helicopters or cranes in without removing trees. After the tree top part of the walk, we went through the ancient part of the park. It is where they have the oldest trees and some are hollow inside, and we could go in. At the beginning, the lady who works there told us about the history, and she said that people used to live in there or even park cars in old trees. One of them was big enough that we took a group picture in it!

When we were on our way back to the Cove, we stopped to see the world's largest barometer. Everyone faked enthusiasm, but the science nerd in me actually thought it was cool! When we got back, we relaxed until dinner, which was spaghetti. After dinner, Illya (the owner of the Cove) taught us how to play speed scrabble, which was a lot of fun, but I'm bad at it. Then we all got around the dinner table and played speed pictionary as two teams. My team lost the first round, but we won the other two. Later that night, some of the guys went outside and came in to tell us all how amazing the stars were, so we all went out to the water/beach area and went stargazing. It was amazingly beautiful. A lot of people saw shooting stars and we could even see the milky way!

1st August (Sunday):

I woke up early because I had to set up breakfast, but I went back to bed since I was still tired. I ate when I set up, so when I did get out of bed, I just sat by the fire until we left, since it was cold. We left the Cove around 9:00 and drove until we stopped for gas, and I bought more Starburst fruitfuls :) We drove further and he gave us a quiz about what we did over the weekend. He gave us each a question in turn, most of which I didn't know the answer, and when he got to me, he asked if I was ready and I said no, so he asked Corin the next question, which of course I actually knew that one! It was what year was the Cove built, and the questions were multiple choice and I read on the ceiling many times that weekend that the ceiling was done in 1976, so the answer was 1975. I was Corin's phone-a-friend. I got my question next, and surprisingly I got it right, too. I was about whose idea it was to build the giant barometer and the answer was Bert something We then stopped at a park for lunch, but I didn't like the sandwiches, so instead I just ate an orange and some of my lollies. After lunch, we finished our drive back to Murdoch.

We got back a little after 2:30, and I unpacked and went to Carrie's room to charge my laptop some more. At 4:45, we went to get our village courtyard t-shirts. My courtyard is the Melaleuca Mammoths, then we went back to her room to check my computer. I went back to my room and did a survey called Intercultural Development Inventory for Paul's seminar on Living and Learning in Australia. At 7:00, there was a welcome barbecue for the whole student village, but you had to wear you village t-shirt. It was really boring and the food was gross. I mainly sat with different people and watched the volleyball game. It was really boring and I was still tired from the weekend, so I went back to the flat to turn in early because classes started the next day.

2nd August (Monday):

Classes started and I had Contemporary Indigenous Issues at 9:30. On the way there, I found out that Corin is in my class, along with some other CIEE students. The lecturer (you don't call them professor here), Dr. Michelle Carey, just talked about course objectives/aims and gave us the unit guide, which is a package with syllabus information and a schedule. Our tutorial (like a discussion; also called a tute) was cancelled this week, so that was my only class.

After class, I went to the administration building to get $1 coins for the laundry. It is so expensive here, $3 for the washer and $3 for the dryer! I also cooked chicken for lunch and tried my new hot sauce. I read my unit reader and then took a nap after lunch.

Later, I watched some tv with my flatmates, and I know them all now. They are Olivia, Scott, Brendan, and Josh. At 7:45, we had the courtyard RAs come over for a flat meeting and they gave us giant calendars of the semester 2 village events. After the meeting we just watched some more tv.

3rd August (Tuesday):

Today I had my biology class at 8:30 and that went alright. The lecturer told us about the class and that the unit reader isn't out yet, but we can read it online. Then at 9:30, I had my other indigenous studies class and the lecturer told us about aboriginal history and the class. He also played the didgeridoo for us, and apparently you aren't supposed to clap afterwards because it scares away the good spirits that the playing brings. The class was 2 hours, followed by an hour tute for that class. In the tute, we watch a video about a famous aboriginal painter who pained watercolors and taught his sons. The class was very long, especially since it goes until lunchtime, when I'm hungry! When I came back, one of my flatmates got the mail, and I got a slip saying that I got a package, so I went to pick it up, and I cannot explain the joy I felt when I got my charger!!! I was so hungry during class, but when I got my charger, I was just so excited that I didn't eat for another hour! haha I also started uploading my pictures to flickr at that time, and it is still uploading now, about 6 1/2 hours later! At 3:30, I went to Paul's seminar and there are only four people in that class! He's not sure yet if it will still go on, or if it's going to be one or two credits. I hope it still goes on, though, since I think it'll provide a good experience. Since class, I've just been catching up on e-mail, this blog, and other things online that I haven't been able to do in the past few days.