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.

This one never got a title :O

Monday:

I walked around campus in the morning, to get to know it a little. Then, at 11, I met with 2 friends from CIEE, Corin and Carrie, and we walked to Kmart to get phones, but they had sold out just minutes before we got there. We did some shopping at Kmart and Cole's for some food and basic things we needed. When we got back we were already running late for our foreign studies meeting, so we put all of our stuff in Carrie's flat and went to the meeting. Afterwards we went to the library to get student IDs and the guild shop to buy transperth cards for the public transportation. We were going to get phones in Freo after that, but everything closes at 5, so we didn't have time. Instead we went to Corin's flat to get Uno to play under the pagoda in the Chinese Gardens and two of her flatmates came. For dinner we had an international student dinner in the Rec room of the village. We had pasta and met some more people, including one from Sweden and one from Denmark. After seeing the other flats and other peoples flatmates, I decided to ask for a flat transfer, but they said no and sent me an email that they would make the people clean and fix the new drain. There is also another girl that lives here, but may be gone for holiday. I also finally got my heater, which works well when it stays on, but it has a one hour timer and has a weird on/off system during that hour.

Tuesday:

Today we had a meeting for the Northwest Outback trip. I'm really excited for it, we are going up the coast, inland, and back down. It lasts for 10 days during either of the first two study breaks, but I have a trip for my biology class during the second break, so I need to go during the first one. We then had a meeting for just the CIEE students. After that, Corin and I went to the Unicredit, where I opened a bank account for the semester, and went to get our guild membership stickers since we found out that CIEE pays for us to be guild members. We then split up and I went to look for my classes, but the three of us (Corin, Carrie, and I) were going to meet in about an hour to go to Freo to get our phones. In the meantime, I went to find my classes, but my biology lecture on friday's classroom was hard to find, so I didn't have time to find two of the classes before meeting them again. I also don't know where the lab is going to be, so I haven't found that out yet either. We then went to Freo to get our phones, and they actually had them! YAY! So I now have a phone that works and can be called and texted (incoming are free to me). We then walked around town and to the water, where I took a few pictures, and Corin has on her camera a picture of the three of us that a nice elderly couple took for us. There was even a place called Joe's fish shack that looked exactly like Joe's crab shack. We then went back to Murdoch and went to our flats until around dinner. We had an international dinner at 6:30 at the food court near bush court (the center of campus, like pine grove.) We were split up into groups based on Australian animals that we wrote our names on. My group was the Dingoes. We played a 'get to know Australia' game and a scavenger hunt, which included needing a picture of two people from different countries, hence the picture on flickr of me and Cass, a girl I met from Singapore that was at my table. We then ate, it was asian food and pretty good. After dinner there was another game where we had to make something that expressed Australia out of tin foil. My team made a giant continent of Australia, including Tasmania, and we had a kangaroo, Uluru (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uluru), and a quokka (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quokka.) There were two teams that won, and one team created a koala in a eucalyptus tree and the other had Steve Irwin being stung to death by a sting ray (which I think is too sad to have won.) After that, I just came back, set up my phone, and am going to bed.

Freo

I woke up this morning pretty cold, but it was better than I thought. They forgot to put a space heater in my room, so I was bundled up in shorts, capris, pants, a tank top, t-shirt, zip up sweatshirt, my Hope sweater shirt, and socks. I also have 3 blankets and a sheet, but they have no insulation in the flats, so it's very cold, especially at night. They said I should get my heater tomorrow, so I can't wait! When I got up, I took a shower, which floods, so it was very quick. I'm not sure how to fix that, but something needs to be done because the water almost rose above the ledge to the main floor! I went online after and watched the first act of A Very Potter Sequel, which is very good so far, and then went for a walk around the village and part of campus. I found this place called the Chinese Gardens, which is really cool and has a pagoda and waterfall.

At noon, I met up with the rest of the CIEE students and we all took a bus to Fremantle (aka Freo). We got off and went to a market, and then we got separated into a few groups. I was with 3 other girls, and we went to look for phones. We found a place that has phones for $29 and a pay as you go plan for $29 (the AUD is very comparable to the USD), but we had to have our passports and I left mine in my room. One girl got hers, though, and the other 3 of us are going to Kmart tomorrow to try and get phones, we heard they have the same price. We walked around Freo and two of the girls wanted to get something to eat, so we went to a restaurant and they got appetizers and drinks. We then went to target to get some things for our flats, but it was expensive, so we decided to find the bus back and go to Kmart, which is near campus. The bus took a long time to get there, but eventually we got back to the shopping centre near Murdoch. When we got there pretty much everything was closed because they close at 5, yes even Kmart and Coles (a grocery store). We did find another grocery store that was open until 9, so we went there and got some food. I just got fruit because I don't think my stomach can handle much of anything else yet. We then walked back to campus, which is about a 10-15 minute walk. I then came back to my room and am literally chilling, since I don't have my heater yet, haha.

Oh, and as for pictures, I'm just putting them on flickr since it takes a long time to load.

Australia!!!

I finally got to Murdoch around midday today (it's 12 hours ahead of the eastern time zone). My flights all went well, but I was afraid I would miss my flight from Sydney to Perth because I only had a two hours lay over and had to reclaim luggage, go through customs, get a boarding pass, take a bus to the other terminals, and find my gate. I made it with only 10-15 minutes to spare! The rest of the flights went well, and I even slept for almost all of the 14-hour flight from LA to Sydney!

All of the people in our CIEE group seem nice and we are going to Fremantle (the port city about 20 minutes away) tomorrow to get our phones and anything else that we need. The flats aren't very nice, and they're co-ed which is weird. I've only met three of my flatmates and they are all guys from Australia, which is weird because they said that the village is only about 40% Australians and 60% international students. I've also heard a lot of other people that were walking around speaking with Australian accents but that may just be that they moved in earlier. I'm also pretty sure that there is another girl in my flat because there are two bathrooms and one has makeup in it, but I haven't seen her yet. For dinner, the CIEE students had a pizza party. The pizza was dominoes, and made a lot of us laugh. It wasn't very good though because there wasn't any cheese or pepperoni, just gross things.

I'm not completely sure of how the internet works, but I have to buy it and don't fully understand the plan, so I'm not sure how often I will be able to get on.

If you want to mail me something, my address is:

Flat 49 Room 2

Murdoch University Village

P.O. Box 1055

Canningvale DC

WA 6970

Australia

I tried to upload pictures, but it is taking too long so I'll try some other time.

For now, I'm going to just relax and go to bed early! It's been a lot of traveling!

Halloween

Halloween was kinda pathetic... we were supposed to decorate the cluster, but they changed the rules so that we could only do it on the first floor. That would have been fine, but we didn't make any decorations and only three of us were there because some people went home, some had Nykerk practice, and some just didn't like Harry Potter or want to help. The three of us that were still here dressed up, though and took pictures. We also decorated pumpkins earlier this month.