The King of Parks, Round 2

Wednesday was a weird day as my Wednesdays always are. I can never really gauge how my Micrbiology labs are gonna go: for instance, I expected yesterday's lab to be an hour affair. It ended up being a two hour affair... which kinda sucked. Basically our lab session was a huge cluster-$#@% because everyone needed something from the same bench in order to start our experiments. As a lot of the reagents we were setting up needed to be autoclaved (sterilized) before proceeding it was a further pain because the autoclave runs were every hour. This meant if we couldn't scratch our way to the front and set up solutions of whatever first, we had to wait an hour to go further. This happened to us because our professors misplaced our lab proposals, so it took a while to see if we were cool to proceed with our project (we where and we got good marks on our proposals). Unfortunately after starting a bit, one of our professors wanted us to tweak things a bit so we had to change our protocol... which is always annoying. Furthermore, someone in our group has to go into the lab a total of three times in the week between labs (I'm going in twice) to advance our project before our next scheduled lab. However, if all goes well next Wednesday, we might have a lab off in the future.

I went for a crap run after lab. It's getting frustrating, really. I think I need more time to run and stretch and I need new shoes. None of those things are going to happen here. Bollocks.

Right before lab, I tried to have lunch. Guess what. That didn't happen. Why? Because one of my flatmates was completely dominating the kitchen: using the whole stove with one giant wok, taking up the entire counter, and filling the air with acrid smoke and ginger (way too much ginger!). As a result (in addition to being very cranky), I was very hungry. So I ate dinner. Twice. And almost three times. GRRR.

Wednesday: 5

Today was a better day. I woke up bright and early at 6. Well, it was dark out. I woke up early at 6. At 8:30 I went to my lecture and regretted it, because no matter how nice of a person my lecturer is, she's not very good at all. I'm guessing she's a little young and maybe a little new, but she cannot for the life of her present the material on her powerpoints besides read them. YES, I see the diagram. Reading off the parts doesn't help, but explaining them and their holistic purpose does. /facepalm

After my boring two hour lecture, I got ready to go out with Jesse. Jesse and I were to meet Connor at one of the train stations in Perth, because today we went to Kings Park for a picnic. Yeah! Picnic! Jesse and I got there in good time but had to wait for Connor, who had an appointment in the city, for over twenty minutes (which was fine). By the time the three of us were all caught up we were all very hungry. Too bad none of us knew how to get to the park. We all knew where it was... but not how to get there directly. This meant we walked about two miles before getting there... but we found a great spot! My lunch wasn't great, but the company was (awwwwh!). It was good times. On the way back we found a much faster and direct route. Word.

And this tree was awesome!

Now I need to have dinner and study a bit before going to bed. And having to wake up for Friday. I hate Fridays.

Thursday: 7.5

So Remember That Time I Had Fun In Plant Diversity Lab? Because I don't.

I know it's been eight days. I've been terrible about keeping up with the blog.

I have this week plus three more weeks of lectures left before a one week study break. After the study break, we have two weeks worth of exams. My four exams (three theory exams and one lab practicum) are spread evenly over nine days; my last exam is on the 10th. While this isn't ideal as I wanted to try to come home early, I'm okay with it. I'll have heaps of time to study for my finals and be relaxed for them. Until exams, I have a project to complete in Microbiology which I designed with my three lab mates (Tim, Mitch - the funny Australians - and Allie - the SC girl from my CIEE group) over the next few weeks which should be fun and only a bit time consuming, a few more labs in Plant Diversity, and a bit of reading here and there for my Pollutants class. All in all, I hope to have plenty of time before study break to study for finals.

Here's a quick run down of last week!

On Tuesday after class, I worked on some Microbiology with Tim. Good times were had. I didn't get much more work done than that.

On Wednesday, I spent too much time in Micro lab planning out our project and it was a bit frustrating. It should be okay now though! I think this was the night I went over to Connor's for a few drinks but all of last week has blended together (not because I got drunk or anything - that was them, not me!).

On Thursday I didn't have any class which was awesome! I probably failed at getting any work done, but I went back to footy practice for the first time. It doesn't look like I missed much. Only a few of us made it which was disappointing, but I'm determined to keep going from now on.

On Friday... my least favorite day of classes... I walked into Plant Diversity lab prepped for lab. I was ready. Then I forgot to take the lab quiz online before I got in. ..then... I walk into lab... and... the professor... was handing out a new lab. THE LAB TO BE DONE FOR THAT WEEK. Are you serious? I was... so mad. Essentially I prepped this coming week's lab, not last week's. I guess if I paid VERY CLOSE attention I might have guessed I was supposed to wait for this lab, but the lab I prepped was the next lab in the handbook. Thankfully the lab on Friday wasn't graded or on the final, so everything ended up okay. But I almost killed someone. I hate this lab.

In the evening, the four of us boys (Connor, Jesse, Greg and I) hung out at Connor's flat and good times were had. Solid, solid evening.

On Saturday Jesse came over to make dinner. We made the best food I've cooked for myself all semester! We made pastries filled with potatoes, onions, vegetables, garlic, bbq sauce, rice and cheese. Absolutely fantastic! I'm now going to make variations of this from now on. I made a pasta bake version of this a week or so ago and that was quite good too, but this meal took the cake. I was really glad to have shared it with Jesse too. I hope to share more meals in general from now on!

That night Connor, Jesse and I went to our friend/neighbor's birthday party. The theme was outrageous attire. ...let's just say I wore a tie around my head, a button down shirt, and a speedo. The button down shirt hid my speedo really well. Haha.

On Sunday I woke up pretty late because I couldn't for the life of me fall asleep and stay asleep--I kept having those dreams where you're trying to do something, like do complicated math or science or working your old summer job before you can go to bed. It's the most annoying thing EVER. I had plans to go to the beach with two of my friends from the Northwest trip, so I texted back one of them. She didn't respond. Finally, she texted me back again telling me she and our friend were leaving. I caught up with them in time and found out she wasn't getting my texts because Australian track phones are the crappiest things in the world. I guess my credit wasn't rolling over month to month or something. I'm so mad. This prevented me from going to a rave a few nights earlier too as it turns out. UGH.

We went to Scarborough Beach, which is north of Perth. I've never been there. Why? Because it took us nearly two hours to get from campus to the sand: walk down to the bus stop, wait for a bus, get to the train station, wait for the train, go about 10 stops on the train, wait for another bus which took even longer to get there to finally get to the beach. I mean, I wasn't really worried about it but I was having fun, but still. AND I won't go there again anyway, so it was nice to go there. It was too cold to go into the water, but the three of us had fun talking on the beach and sitting in the sun anyway.

We didn't have class on Monday because of a public holiday (ANZAC - the WWII memorial holiday for AUS and NZ) which meant my third busiest day of the week could now be spent to leisurely studying. However, I didn't get too much studying done because I did my laundry, tidied my room and flat (as it was inspected today) and looked up my exams. I was able to get the past five years of exams for my three classes (but not the practicum for my hated class) and it looks like they're all strikingly similar to each other and comprised almost completely with essay questions (which I greatly prefer). Things are looking up! I hope to answer all the questions in the past exams before study break comes and be able to study them and relax over study break. Shortly after getting this squared away, Jesse (and later Connor) came over to figure out what we wanted to do in our last 6-7 weeks in Australia. Here's what we came up with:

On Thursday this week, the three of us are going to King's Park to have a picnic lunch. I'm very excited.

On Friday, we're going to a few bars before going to an arcade with Greg included. They're all very excited (this has been planned for a few weeks).

On Saturday we might go into Freo for dinner and watch the sunset up upon a hill. Sounds AWESOME.

Next Friday we're going to have a pizza night and watch Avatar again. I'm REALLY excited for this!

The Friday after that we're going to another professional footy game. I'll have to book it out of lab, but it should work okay. After we hope to go into Perth city and explore or something like that. This probably means going to bars.

One of the next two weekends in the future we hope to get out of the metro area and go to this really nice national park and do a 15k walk/hike through some really pretty areas.

Jesse and I will be sure to do a few afternoon trips over study break since we're both here over study break (Greg and Connor are going to Bali, but Connor may cancel and study here instead!). I'm excited for this too!

We all hope to do more than the few things here. I hope the next few weeks are as fun as the first few weeks here. Since the Northwest trip I haven't been having as much fun as I was before, but plenty of fun to keep me happy. I'm just hoping to finish off my stay with a bang and leave with a lot of good memories. Let's get to it!!

Monday evening Connor, Jesse and I went to the oval where we play footy (footy fields are called ovals) and kicked a soccer ball around. It was a kind of fail trip to the field, but it was fun nonetheless. The three of us then made a repeat dinner of the pastries Jesse and I made on Saturday night and then watched an episode of Scrubs. Good times! We then went to the rec room so I could watch Connor and Jesse  hit a combined 15 scratches or so on the pool table. It was fun watching them, honest. Jesse then kicked my butt in table tennis. I just want to learn how to play better haha!

Today, Tuesday, has been a long day. I woke up early to get my computer gaming in before class and make a good breakfast. I only had the one lecture today, and it was sort of a waste of time because it was an introduction to things I already knew. Oh well. After lecture I skipped lunch because my breakfast was late and filling and went to Coles with Jesse and Greg. I love food shopping at Coles. I love spending time wit Jesse and Greg. Naturally, shopping with Jesse and Greg is always good times. Word.

After I got back from Coles, I got a few things together and went for a short run. My run was kinda lame and I'm still trying to get back into shape and running 5 days a week. Oh well. I had about 40 minutes after my run to stretch and rest before going back out to play Footy again. A lot more people showed up this time (12 or so) and I generally had a fun time. It's frustrating playing a new sport and not doing so well and having 8 year olds a little ways away do everything extremely well. :-\

After Footy I was absolutely starving, so I booked it home with Jesse. I had almost twice the amount of pasta I usually do with alfredo sauce (which I've been treating myself to recently and absolutely loving it) and I'm still hungry an hour or so later. I'll have to have another dinner after I finish this.

I hope to keep up with my blogs from here on out so I can document my last few weeks really well. I'm hoping they will be heaps of fun like my first six weeks were!

Tuesday: 7
Wednesday: 6.5
Thursday: 7
Friday: 8
Saturday: 7
Sunday: 6
Monday: 7.5
Tuesday: 7.5

Red Bull Gives You Wiiiings!

The more the semester gets on, the less I update this blog, which is becoming a problem. Hmm... let's see what I did last week:

On Tuesday I went to my only lecture (Microbiology) and Tim came over to work on our project proposal (we're going to be working on a project we're designing ourselves in a group of four; Allie and Mitch are working with us too) only to find out once we checked online that we didn't have to do the proposal until next week. So, yeah, we didn't do the proposal. Essentially Tuesday, which is supposed to be my workhorse day, ended up being a failure because I didn't get any work done. Oh well.

Wednesday was a long day because my Micro lab went really long. We had an hour prelab lecture and even though the lab wasn't very intensive, we had to wait around a long time in between steps. However, Tim and I who were planning out our proposal in the meantime, kept asking one of our professors absolutely ridiculous questions ("Can we try to grow bacteria at absolute zero?") without him really catching on to the fact we were joking. It was a good time. After I went for a run, Jesse, Connor and I had another pizza night which was great as always. However, one of Connor's girl friends came over and we didn't end up doing much after we finished dinner. Oh well.

On Thursday, Jesse agreed to go to South Beach with me, as I needed to collect some seaweed for my Plant Diversity lab. The forecast was partly sunny, so I wasn't too worried. Um, it started raining 5 minutes after we got there, and even though I had a rain jacket I got soaked. I got a few samples of seaweed but it was a pretty disappointing day. I had been hoping to maybe even go for a swim. For Jesse's sake especially, I felt bad it was such a crappy day. Oh well.

Friday was an alright day. My Plant Diversity lab wasn't too terrible because we were only looking at our seaweed samples so we could draw some diagrams and such. I still hate the lab though, because I got a poor mark on a lab even though it wasn't my bloody fault. Yeah, professor, I'm half assing these labs because I feel like it. NO, your organization sucks. I'm freaking tired of this. I'm trying to do well and you suck. End of story. Friday night was boring because I didn't feel like doing anything. Blah.

Saturday was a much, much better day. Jesse and I went into Perth to see the Red Bull Air Race which was being flown on the river. The RB Air Race, which consists of lightweight acrobatic planes capable of reaching top speeds of 252 to 265 mph, tours only a few cities each year (this was the fourth year Perth hosted a leg of the championship). We took the train into Perth where we caught a special bus to the river shore. This event was big time stuff, with a huge camera crew, giant TV screens and everything!

While we obviously knew almost nothing about the pilots, planes or the race itself, it was really fun seeing something I've only seen a few times on TV but thought was really badass. These pilots  have to sit with there knees up to their chests and sit back at an angle so the blood doesn't pool in their legs. They reach forces of up to 12Gs! (But they can't go over that limit or they're disqualified.)

We only stayed at the race for a little over an hour, which was plenty of time for the two of us to enjoy the racing. Jesse and I ended up traveling back with a few of our friends who happened to be going back at the same time. Even though it was a really nice day (and a really nice weekend for that matter!) I spent a few hours locked up in my room working on a paper. I was okay with this on Saturday at the very least, because Greg was throwing a party that night.

The party that night was AWESOME. Too many people ended up coming and the party got broken up to our great dismay. For a country that drinks more than America, they're such little wankers about parties. OH MY GOD IT'S 10:30 AT NIGHT ON A WEEKEND AND YOU'RE BEING KIND OF LOUD. YOU NEED TO ALL GO HOME. Really? Really? You guys need to get laid, seriously. Oh well. I did however get to see a lot of my friends from the Northwest trip that I hadn't seen in a few weeks and I got to bond with them. Overall it was one of my favorite parties I've ever been to and one of my favorite nights here!

I spent all day Sunday finishing my paper before going on a run. What a boring day for such a gorgeous day! :( I went to bed at 9:30PM. Yeah. I'm cool.

I woke up today at 6:30AM and played WoW for a few hours before I went to print off my paper and pass it in. Because a lot of people were still working on their papers (which was due today), only 10 out of the usual 30 or 35 students came to the lecture. The 2-hour lecture seemed unusually boring and dry with the lecture hall so empty. After my discussion which I went to right after, I went food shopping with the boys (Connor, Jesse and Greg), but that had me out of my room from almost 10:30 to 3:30 which was a long day. I might just go to bed at 9:30 again tonight. Ha!

Tuesday: 6
Wednesday: 7
Thursday: 7
Friday: 6
Saturday: 8.5
Sunday: 6
Monday: 7

Baby Jesus, Let's Plan on Finding Some Seaweed Together

Yeah, so, as evidenced by my lack of posts all last week, I didn't do a whole lot of anything over study break, which, by now, I'm okay with. What did I do over study break? I played World of Warcraft for the first time since the end of January. I also got a good amount of skyping with my friend Alicia which always makes a good day into an awesome day. WORD.

Each day over break was pretty much the same with a few ups and downs. Because I didn't write anything down and each day was pretty much the same, I don't have much to say for each of the days individually. On Monday however, I signed up for classes for the fall. And boy, and I excited.

I had to take French to fulfill the language requirement for my BA which is fine, yeah, have to take it. I'm taking two biology seminars which meet once a week each for 3-3.5 hours: Ecology of Disease Vectors (with a professor I haven't had yet but is supposed to be great; he works close with my lab professor Deb who I can't stop raving about) and Population Genetics (with a grad student/Post-Doc? under the head of the department). Both should be great classes. For my fourth class I'm doing another directed lab study with Deb (which I did last fall). In addition to getting my single a couple weeks back, Fall 2010 is looking freaking awesome!!

My schedule for next fall is pretty awesome too: on Mondays, I have French starting at 12 noon then my Disease Vectors seminar right after until 4 or so in the afternoon (long day but should be a good day). Tuesdays I only have my French discussion in the late afternoon. Wednesdays I think I only have my French lecture, and Thursdays I only have my Genetics seminar in the afternoon. Fridays, as long as I get my lab work done, is free. I believe I'm not required to do lab work for either of my seminars, which is great. Because I'm taking seminars, it leaves my schedule open with large chunks of unscheduled time, which gives me great blocks of time to do my directed lab study such that I should be able to have Fridays off. I think this semester I'm going to make it a habit of doing lab work in the evenings after dinner, because the bio building is nice and beautifully quiet then.

This week I also applied for a summer research fellowship, which would supply me with a stipend and housing. Given I'd be continuing a project I've already started with a faculty member and I'll be a senior, I'm really hoping I get it. This would also mean I would be in Worcester almost ALL of my remaining summer, but it would be a great lab experience. Looking ahead to the end of this semester, I'm hoping my finals will be scheduled to the front of my two week final exam period. After six more weeks of classes which I started today, we have a 7-day study break before finals start, which go over two weeks. If I can manage, I'd like to try to change my flights a few days earlier. This would be beneficial in several ways: one, I'm more likely to get a lift to the airport by a friend if I leave earlier rather than after exams (which would save me a $60 cab fare; granted changing my flights might cost be $50 or so) and I'd have more wiggle room time at home before my lab studies, if I get the fellowship. Ideally, I'd love to have a few days before I have to go to Worcester and a few days at home before the semester starts. We'll see though. All I can do is  hope and chill out and wait. Oh, and the final exam schedule should be out this or next week.

During the week somewhere in there, Connor and I took the train into Perth city to visit his flatmate Tracey in the hospital. We brought her a few things and picked up her car from the carpark and drove it home. It was fun going in with him, but kinda sad to see a lot of young people out on the night. It made me miss my Clark friends and Boston. I hope to tear up Boston a lot this fall! The drive back was especially interesting since Connor wasn't too sure where to go but I almost sorta did. We got home with no problem.

So yeah, signed up for classes and played a lot of WoW, that's basically all I did in a addition to going into Perth once. I'm cool with it though; I relaxed and chilled out.

This week I have to catch up studying, plan out a lab project, and write a paper for next Monday. I just found out today (thank Baby Jesus I checked) from my Plant Diversity lab (the one I passionately hate) notebook that I'm expected to collect seaweed samples from an area beach to bring into lab. I panicked at first, but as long as I can find some seaweed (hopefully I can find some at South Beach) I'm actually kind of excited. I don't have Plant Diversity lecture on Thursday (which means Thursday is open), so I'll go then. It might not be a nice day, but Jesse said he might go with me. I'm pretty stoked!

So tonight I'm starting to work on my paper, and tomorrow, Tuesday, I only have one lecture (50 minutes) and I'll be able to plan out my Microbiology lab project (who I'm working on it with my two Australian mates Tim and Mitch and my American gal pal Allie) and prep for the Micro lab we have scheduled for Wednesday with ease, in addition to getting in some work on my essay that's due Monday. Then on Wednesday I'll get some more work done on my essay; Thursday I'll go to the beach and collect some samples, prep for the Plant Diversity lab on Friday, and Friday I should have a decent day in lab. Nothing too stressful. This weekend I'll finish my paper for next Monday, and next week I'll start studying for finals (composing study guides from notes, etc.). I believe that after this paper for Monday and a few lab related things here and there, I really don't have much at all until finals, so I will have plenty of time to study and be comfortable by the time finals come. Let's do it to it!

Today after my lecture and my discussion, I went shopping with Greg who had been away all week on the second Northwest trip. Man, I love this kid. He made me laugh so much because he is such a funny, laid back, goofy kid. It was a great food shop (and I love food shopping) and I didn't spend too much this week which was great. I had to buy more shampoo and toothpaste (that will last be the rest of the semester) so my bill was a little higher, but I think I'm on track to keeping to a good, low food budget. Word!

Now I must turn to my paper which I'll be working on all week and weekend. (I'm sitting across from Jesse--who, like Greg, was gone all week on the trip--in the library, and he is also working on a paper.) I got back my group paper today and was not satisfied with the result: a 70, which is a B in Australia (they call it a distinction). Looking it over, only my section was nearly spotless. The buggers in my group didn't provide heaps of citations they used in the text in the reference list!! I'm so mad about that! Oh well, it's all the motivation I need to totally own this paper. HERE I GO!

Saturday, April 3rd - Sunday, April 11th: 6
Monday: 7.5

Master of guessing musical artists

 I woke up Wednesday like it was any other Wednesday. The sun was shining and I woke up naked in an alley with no recollection of how I had gotten there.

Ha! Just kidding. Just testing to see if you were paying attention.

I woke up Wednesday like it was any other Wednesday. The sun was shining and I woke up IN MY BED with my underwear on (yes, I sleep in my underwear... yeah yeah, maybe you didn't want to know that, but at least it's my underwear and not someone else's, k?). After a quick breakfast I was off to Micro lecture.

Micro lecture as I've discussed in the recent past is now where I get my jollies. Tim, Mitch and I are ridiculous together. Thankfully for the people around us, I actually took some notes even though it was a boring lecture and all the notes were on the powerpoint. After my following lecture, I went to wait outside the library to meet this kid I met on WoW. After a short while I did indeed meet him but only briefly because I was extremely hungry and needed some food. Mitch, who happened to walk out of the library just before I met my WoW friend, came back to my flat so we could review for our Micro exam which we had in three hours time.

I made myself some food (Mitch wasn't hungry) and the both of us kinda reviewed but ended up listening to music mostly and talking about an array of things. With just over an hour to go, the two of us went down to a little cafe down and behind the library to relax before the exam. I got an energy drink (yes!) and was quite happy. Our classmate Allie (from SC) happened to walk by so she joined us too. It was a quite happy affair.

The three of us walked to the exam in a different lecture theatre (one I'd never been in) and we took our exam. The exam... wasn't too too bad. There were some questions on there I felt were way too specific. Halfway through the exam a cellphone went off in someone's backpack at the front of the theatre. It was... an awesome ringtone. Turns out it was Mitch's phone. Ha.

Tim, Mitch and I all finished the exam within a minute of each other, so we walked back to Bush Court together were we stood around talking for a long while before Tim had to run. Good stuff. We hope to get together over break soon to hang out properly. They're good kids when they're not smoking crack cocaine (which is a huge problem for them--again, I kid).

I went for a quick run and had a quick meal before Greg, Connor, Jesse, and Josh (Connor's friend who went to the club with us a while back) went to Connor's flat for drinks and the like. While we hung out, we had a guessing game of which music artist was playing off Greg's laptop. I totally kicked everyone's keisters. I'm proud.

Overall, it was a great night. I mean, come on. Look at this picture. How silly are Jesse and I? Very silly is the answer you're looking for.

Maybe it's the beer I've been drinking, but I'm finding myself not a fan of it at all. In general I've been drinking a lot less alcohol than I thought I would. I hardly ever have a glass or two of wine just because with meals and such. I wonder if this will change back at home where it's cheaper. *shrugs*

I woke up Thursday morning overly tired so I skipped my one lecture. Pretty sure it was my first skipped lecture ever for college. To be fair, the current lecturer doesn't know what the hell she's doing so I would have ended up taking notes from the powerpoint, which I'll do soon. I had a couple of meetings and didn't get anything else done. I downloaded the new patch (an update) for World of Warcraft and resubscribed my subscription for this month. After dinner, I went to Coles to get a few things by myself. In general Thursday was kind of a fail of a day, because I didn't get anything done. At all. Oh well.

Same goes for Friday, which I had off. I didn't do anything. Connor and I went to the pool for a very small bit before he had to go to mass. We left it hanging that we might go out to dinner or make a group dinner together which I was excited for, but plans changed when more people wanted to go so I ended up not going because plans got too messy so I didn't want any of it. I made dinner and played WoW. Yeah. Real exciting.

Wednesday: 9.5
Thursday: 5
Friday: 7

The Final Chapter of the Northwest Trip: Episodes 7-10

 Thursday, March 11th

Boy oh boy, we got to sleep in on Thursday! We woke up at 6:30, which was nice for a change... not that I didn't wake up at 6 anyway out of the instinct ingrained into my skull over the past week. After a lame breakfast as always, we were out of the camp by 7:45. Little did I know today was going to be the best day of the trip.

Walking to the gorge within which we were going to spend the majority of our day, we saw a lot of gorgeous scenery. It was quite pretty. After a few kilometer walk, we started to walk down into the canyon, and things got even prettier. Walking down into the canyon was quite easy for me, being the buff athlete that I am, but that wasn't the case for everyone, so climbing down was a tedious task. At one point we all climbed down a ladder and Barry was calling out numbers as we did so while we spotted us. He told me "8." Apparently he was rating everyone's asses, and I believe mine was the best out of the entire group.

Once we were on the floor, we walked a kilometer or so along it, climbing up over rocks and crossing ledges covered in water. It was quite cool down there, and a real pleasure to look up at the canyon from the bottom.

As you can see, I'm holding up this giant boulder to my mates could pass with safety. I am truly special.

Our first stop on our trip was a watering hole called Circular Pool, and boy was it beautiful. Apparently soon after we arrived and dove into the water, a King Brown snake slithered by us. This snake is one of the deadliest in the entire world. The average person could die 63 times with one single bite. Yikes. apparently Barry, who saw it, said he couldn't hear it as it slithered over dry leaves. Spooky!

Circular pool was absolutely fantastic though! It was such a cute little watering hole. The water was so fresh and tasted so good (a lot of us drank as we swam!). There was this cool little ledge that we were all jumping off of (see me below! Thanks for the picture, Justin!). The water wasn't too cold for 9, 9:30 in the morning, especially since the sun hadn't hit the water yet. It was such beautiful spot; I feel lucky to have visited! I also included a picture below of me posing in a speedo and cape, because I don't have any shame and I am quite a silly person. :-p

After climbing out of Circular Pool and drying off, we walked several kilometers (backtracking a bit) along the canyon to our next spot. This was probably my favorite walk of the entire trip because we walked through the coolest places ever. It was like walking through a whole new reality! The whole lot of us walked passed a python (not venomous) in a single file. There was a big scare until Barry realized it was only a python, not another King Brown.

Upon the end of our walk, we ended up at my favorite place on the entire trip, and the coolest place I've been to in Australia. Meet Fortescue Falls. I absolutely LOVED it there.

The water here was really, really nice and warm and tasty. The rocks were gorgeous and great for climbing and sitting on. The waterfall was really great but the rocks were in no condition there to slide down. We spent an hour and a half there at least, lounging around, playing in the waterfall, tossing a tennis ball off the cliff next to the falls, and having a generally awesome time.

After Fortescue Falls, we climbed back out, had lunch, and went to the Karijini National Park visitors center but it was really boring so I'm not even going to talk about it anymore than I have. I feel like I wasted space just mentioning it. It started to rain a bit while we were in the visitors center and we thought our tents were screwed (but they were fine). After we got back, we sent out on another adventure.

We headed back to Fortescue Falls (which you can see in the left of the frame down below) because hidden behind it was a third watering hole treasure. The walk from the Falls to the next watering hole was really cool too. just before the watering hole, I saw my first bats!

After the bats and around a corner, we arrived at Fern Pool, which is considered sacred by the aboriginal population. Fern Pool isn't on the map because they don't really want people going there because it is sacred. They believe a giant snake spirit lives in there (I didn't see it). It was nice there, but the only place to hang out there really was the fall way in the back which was a pain to swim to. It was a really cool place to visit nonetheless.

At lunch time earlier in the day, I used collected yellow ocre and the red dirt below my feet to tie dye a white t-shirt I brought along with me, specifically for the tie dying. I washed in here in the pool before we left. I haven't really worn the t-shirt yet and I'll have to be careful washing it because I was told the red dirt, which my running shoes are stained with as well, might wash out after a while to some extent.

We went back to the Falls as it got cloudier and started to drizzle. This however meant we got a rainbow. The BEST rainbow I've ever seen. Ever. If you look closely you can see a second rainbow on top of the first one. It was really fun being there and seeing it, as it was that bright for at least twenty minutes. My friend Paul and I climbed along the cliff below the rainbow until people started to follow us. As Paul put it, we trusted ourselves not to fall, but not others, which sucked because I wanted to keep going! It took this picture from there too, and it's one of my favorites (just above).

On our way out of the canyon, Ben took this picture of me shooting a rainbow, and I saw a dingo from the distance! My picture isn't that great, but one of my friends got really close to one earlier in the day. I'm really jealous.

Dinner consisted of a weird chili on pasta which was okay, nothing special. Post dinner was filled with ghost stories around the "fire" (the kerosene lamp) during which I heard the ending to Paranormal Activity. Sounds scary.

Just as I was about to go to bed, I went into two of my friends' tents, where the three of us talked for awhile. This was until one of them put their flashlight on the ceiling of their tent, and then the wall of the tent to reveal a 6-plus inch praying mantis. I mean that thing was huge. As a result one of the girls let out a blood curdling scream and woke everyone up. The other girl and I thought it was incredibly funny. I laughed.
Thursday: 9

Friday, March 12th
I heard a dingo howling in the wee hours of Friday which was really cool. I woke up, heard the howl, thought to myself "you're hearing a dingo howl, cool!" then promptly feel back asleep. We hiked back down to the Falls for a little while which was nice and allowed me to say goodbye. I really hope I get to go back someday.

We then left Karijini to drive to Newman, a mining town. Considering we were on the same highway from then until we reached Perth, we didn't drive that far. At all. Which annoyed us. Annoyed us all. I slept most of the trip to Newman which was a nice change. Because it's a mining town, Newman is incredibly depressing. Most of the people there are miners who work crazy long shifts for a couple weeks at a time before flying back home. The whole story of miners and mining makes me sad. Newman also has a crazy aboriginal population who just get drunk all the time. As such, you can't buy boxed wine unless it's Monday or Tuesday because they just buy it and get smashed all the time. That's even more sad.

Newman was boring and I hated it. This is what I did:

We went shopping at a Woolworth's complex.

I almost got run over by a giant truck.

I swam in a really gross pool at the campsite. I didn't notice the skin flakes floating in it until after I got out of the water.

Dinner sucked because we had like 2 hours to kill before we got it. Furthermore, I felt disconnected and excluded from the group. I ate dinner by myself. Everyone went out to the bar. But I didn't go. Why? Well because it was a scary and long walk and IT WAS IN A MINING TOWN. WHO DO YOU THINK GOES TO THE BARS IN A MINING TOWN? The answer is uneducated, homophobic, sexist, disgusting douchebag miners. That's why I didn't go. Turns out I was completely right about the bar. It sucked. Everyone went and didn't like it and was scared shitless on the way back because the aboriginals were drunk, a nuisance, and doing some voodoo dance (this is how it was described to me).

I spent my night talking to Craig who is really cool. I got a good hour in before some crazy, drunk miner joined in and made me feel uncomfortable. Another less creepy miner joined in later. Thankfully Craig had plenty to talk to them about since he knows mining quite well (apparently he used he used to mine but hated it even thought he money is crazy good). The miners creepily checked out my friend and took forever to leave. Oh well. I ended up having another late night conversation in a tent with a whole bunch of girls who complained about boys. It was sorta funny. Word.

Friday: 7

Saturday, March 13th
We woke up niiiice and early as usual and drove a long way, as usual. I got a bit of sleep on the bus and refrained from buying a $5 Mother (Australia's most popular energy drink) on our first stop, but ended up getting a Monster nearly that expensive at Shell just before lunch. And because lunch sucked so much, I went back and got another one and a bot of Tim Tams which started to rapidly melt within 20 seconds of going outside. Today was really boring and totally sucked.

We drove to a sheep farm that was several hundred acres. Pretty crazy. After hanging around the camp site for a while, we drove the 2 of the caravans to this nice little area to see a sunset which didn't happen because it was overcast. This is face I made when the sunset was lame as heck:

I really like Alison's face in the background. She's the praying mantis girl. The view from there wasn't too bad though:

Our sleeping quarters consisted of a giant barn used to shear sheep. It was really crowded so half of us, including me, slept outside under the stars (which were not impressive due to the clouds) without a tent. That part was pretty cool, but all in all, it was a kinda crappy day because I felt more disconnected from everyone and just wanted to be back at Murdoch.

Saturday: 5

Sunday, March 14th - The drive home.

We woke up... extremely early on Sunday. 5am. Pain of it was no one had their act together so it took us 75 minutes to have breakfast, get packed up, and onto the road. Everyone was eager to get back to Murdoch, hence the early wake up. However, waking up that early didn't end up being all that horrible, because we saw the best sunrise (which was better than all the sunsets too, besides maybe the one at Coral Bay the first night) I've ever seen.

Because someone completely new sat in the front seat, I was pushed back on the bus. To the way back. Between to German girls. ...it ended up going really well though. The German girl who I sat directly next to was really nice and we had some good conversations. Most of the Germans are (or were) really big fans of the Finnish gothic metal band Nightwish, who I really like. We played some on the bus and it was really cool to see my peers like a slightly obscure band as much as I do.

We stopped for lunch... even though nobody wanted to: we all wanted to keep pushing onto Perth! Alas, we had to anyway, and lunch was as boring as ever. Within an hour we were back on the bus though to make the final 2 hour or so push. We got in around 2pm and we were all extremely eager to bolt from the buses. After jumping up on the bus to unload bags one final time, and a quick goodbye to the tour guides, I ran my stuff back to my room, unpacked all my gross laundry, and ran to the laundry room. Cool German girl beat me there by 5 seconds, but we both got a laundry machine. Turns out most people wanted to do their laundry, for when I went to pick it up one of the Clark girls was unloading my laundry.

But yeah, trip finished.

Sunday: 7

One hundred and eighteen is a lot of points to score.

It's Tuesday morning (as I'm starting this blog--I have to run to lecture soon) and I haven't updated by blog at all since the previous Wednesday. Yes, I know this is absolutely ridiculous. The main reason why is because I've been studying. A lot. For this week I prepared a 2 page synopsis of a paper for Pollutants I'm going to write either within the next few days or next week (and apparently put way too much work into it, but then again that's less work I'll have to do on the final paper), a lab report for Microbiology (that I may or may not have to do a second draft of the week after next), a research fellowship grant proposal for this summer, and I studied for my Micro exam. Whew. That was a lot of jargon.

Next week starting on Friday the second I have my second study break. I'm pretty excited it's a total of 9! days. I decided I would try to get as much done as possible and get ahead in my studies. This means finish my paper for Pollutants that is due the second Monday we get back from break, catch up on my reading and possible read ahead in the text books from the library, write out some review questions I'm going to have to do soon anyway, complete some labs online to catch up, and compile first half study guides for two of my classes (I've already done one for Micro essentially because of the midterm this week). After this week, we're essentially have way through the semester. As of tomorrow, Wednesday, I'll be home in 11 weeks. But basically in a nutshell, I have a bunch of work I've been trying to get done so I can have a more open break, so I canplayWorldofWarcraftwithmybrotherathomebecauseI'mnotanerdoranything. In my glorious defense, I haven't played WoW since I left home because I don't want to make time for it around my studies because that wouldn't be cool.

I don't think it's quite possible to do a breakdown of my last few days because I've lost track a bit. I know on Thursday, my easy day, I went shopping with Jesse at Coles before running off to a meeting with my American environmental studies friends, during which we talked about doing things during the rest of the semester. I'm a little annoyed because I was in a GREAT mood at that point so I said I'd do a lot of things, which I no longer have any interest in because I'm too busy. Oh well. It then took me a while before I got any work done.

Friday wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be because I didn't have my morning 2 hour lecture, and, well, the lab I hate so much ended up being really lame because they didn't have everything prepared when we got there. After messing around with the microscopes for about 2 hours I left. I'll make it up online because I wasn't passing in this lab. I was actually sort of annoyed the lab samples were not prepared by the time we got there. A lot of people left early so I did too, well, sorta. Friday night a bunch of us got pizza from Dominoes and we ate too much of it while watching Spongebob. It was a decent night but I was really out of it, so I went back to my room early and decided to look through my classes for the fall. This is when I found out I could apply for a research fellowship for this summer. The research fellowship is flipping sweet, but I won't go into too much detail yet because I'm still in the process of applying for it. Wish me luck!

In the fall I'm looking at taking French because I have to, two biology seminars (one 2.5 or 3 hour lecture a week) and a directed lab study (like I did last semester). This means because I don't have any specific times I need to be in the lab for my directed study, I'll have a very wide open schedule. I might even be able to pull it off such that I don't have to go into lab on Friday to get work done which would be great because I have Fridays off otherwise (and I hear a lot of really awesome people might have Friday off too). Next semester should be a lot of fun and I can't wait for it!

I woke up at a good hour on Saturday (notice how I'm breaking down each day even though I said I wouldn't) and worked all morning and early afternoon on my paper synopsis and research fellowship proposal. This proved difficult as someone named Alicia kept me away from my work on Skype and AIM. I was actually pretty happy with the amount of work I got done. After going for a run, shower/having dinner, and doing a little more work, Jesse and I shut off all our power in our rooms and sat out on my porch coming up with ideas for movie skits we'd like to do. We'll have to see if we even get to filming after break.

Jesse and I then went down to Connor's flat to see what he was up to. He and Greg were skyping with Clark girls, all of whom I knew. One of them screamed only a little bit when I walked infront of the webcam. It was cute. That skyping turned into getting my laptop to join Greg and Connor on their laptops to go onto the website Chatroulette. If you don't know, Chatroulette is a website where you have random video chats with people around the world. It is known for being an exhibitionist playground. Essentially guys love to expose themselves on there. It's sickening. Nonetheless, the night was filled with a lot of laughing and general nonsense as we messed around with people. Not to worry, I stayed fully clothed.

Sunday morning I woke up at a decent hour to do even more homework. Yay! I wanted to get as much done as possible before I had to go to the Australian Rules Football match with the CIEE bunch. Jesse and I left at 3 and took a bus into Freo and a train from there to an neighborhood called Subiaco. Subiaco Oval is home to the Fremantle Dockers, a purple-clad AFL (Australian Football League) team. Apparently, the Dockers are usually pretty bad. Visiting were the Adelaide Crows. However! This was the season/home opener! Additionally, we had pretty good seats!

The pitch, which is a giant, long oval, has two sets of goal posts, one on each end. The object is to kick (punt) the oblong ball through the posts, the middle set being worth six points and the outside posts being only worth one point. Eighteen players a side play, so it's sometimes quite crowded! I won't go into the semantics of the game, but the Dockers kicked ass! The final score was 118-62--a large margin of victory. The Crows did come back a bit in the third quarter, but the fourth quarter was almost all Dockers which was great because that was our end. All in all it was a fun game and I'd consider going to another game!

The train ride back actually wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. I was expecting something similar to trying to ride the T after a Sox game. I mean, it was crowded sure. We decided to go into Perth and take the train back that way which was a much better idea than going back the way we came, because the trains back into Freo were JAM PACKED. I was actually surprised at that. The train ride back was good times. There were a handful of us CIEE kids going home together so it was reaaaal nice but we were all reaaaal tired. I went to bed soon after I got home.

Monday morning I went shopping at Coles and got a few things. The damn bus back home was 5+ minutes late (which is extreme for my bus line, so I started walking home only for it to pass me on my way back. I was pissed. I did however beat back the next bus that would have come on that bus line, so it wasn't terrible. Oh well. My lecture wasn't too too bad and my discussion which got moved to Mondays is in a much nicer room and a few more people turned up to that one. Unfortunately I over prepared for my paper which we were going over (the synopsis) and I felt silly for preparing so much. I was a little annoyed. After a run, I made pasties filled with a lot of goodness and did a bit of studying before going to bed around 11:30 (which is early for me!).

Today, Tuesday morning, I slept in until 10 which was great. My one class at 11:30--Microbiology--ended up not happening because the lecturer couldn't make it. However, I didn't end up leaving lecture until about 12:00 anyway because one of our lecturers came in to tell us the first lecturer couldn't make it and he tried to see if he had any lecture put together that would have been appropriate (but he didn't). However, my friend Tim (who I previously mentioned) came back to my flat to study for our midterm for a bit, not that we got much studying done. Basically we ended up laughing the whole time and talking about inappropriate things which is almost a fun, fun time. I studied a bit after that and I plan on going on a run today in a little bit once the sun's down a bit more. I hope to start on some homework I have planned for my study break, and I'll review for my Microbiology midterm a bit more in the morning perhaps before lecture. I should have at least 90 minutes in the afternoon tomorrow to review for it. The exam, which is only 15% of my grade, is at 3:30 (and I usually have the Micro lab at 1:30). After my class gets out at 12:30 tomorrow, I hope to meet this kid I met randomly on WoW. The story goes something like this: I was playing in a dungeon with a group of random people, all from different servers from me (meaning I wouldn't see them anywhere besides a dungeon). We wanted to do another dungeon because we were a really good team, but one of them had to go to bed and I figured out he was (at the time) 13 hours of me. I asked if he was from Australia and he said yes. Turns out he was due to be a first year at Murdoch. What are the odds of that!? It was absolutely ridiculous. After several failed attempts I hope to meet this kid in person just to say hi. I hope to then have time to have a nice leisurely lunch before taking my exam at 3:30. I'm not too worried about the exam. We'll see though! I hope to get a lot more studying done Wednesday night. Thursday I just have the one lecture before a meeting at 2. Then I'm completely done before break! No horrible Friday!! Yayy!!! I hope to get a lot of gaming in on Thursday and Friday and the weekend to reward my studies for the past two weeks. During the week of break I expect to get some good studying done though, so not to worry. :-p

Thursday: 7.5
Friday: 7
Saturday: 8
Sunday: 8
Monday: 7.5
Tuesday: 7.5