Sorry for Partying and Maybe Some School Work.. Maybe..

Sorry I haven't updated in a while, honestly just forgot/haven't had time/ been busy/ been lazy/ been lazy x1000 (: But I just finished up a ton of work and I am in a typing mood so here goes nothin!

Me + Lindon after he got back- TRASHED

I left off somewhere arounddd winning in tennis (see how I mentioned it again- not that I'm proud of it or anything or want to brag- false, I do) Well later that day the boys of Emmnanuel had their own exclusive event called Big Game Fishing Contest- BGFC for short. They all dressed up in women's clothing ... of course... and each brought entire sacks of goon [boxed wine] for themselves. Yes an entire slapping of the bag for one person and they went to an undisclosed location which the girls were not told about, or anyone for that matter- safe? debatable and probably got hazed and drank all day and did activities... needless to say they all left looking ridiculous in women's clothing at 1230. When they all stumbled back 100% drunk at 430 covered in food dye, clothes completely ruined and 100% out of control I knew it had to be a good day- It was just hilarious to watch them all stumble in and see what had become of their outfits/faces/everything. Then as per tradition they all "showered" not really though because they were all so drunk that even doing that was tough and changed into SUITS and went to dinner in the dinning hall. One person after filling up his plate full of food and got his drinks just proceeded to completely drop his tray in the middle of the hall because he was too drunk to hold it- another peed in the corner ... You could say the higher up people were NOT TOO KEEN about this and therefore the girls' equivalent called Ladies Day has been postponed. Which actually stinks because it sounds like it would be a very fun event.. and I doubt/ hope no one would get as ridiculous/ out of control than the boys... but then again.. .. (:

monday nothing too thrilling occurred that I wrote down was even memorable.. thanks 3/21/11 ?

Tuesday 3/22 however was memorable. It was another night of formal dinner except tonight- as is formal dinner tradition one wing each week gets to go early and drink with the president of the college and other high adults of the college and gets fed yummy appetizers etc. This week it was my wing! Also what the wing leaders- yogi and michelle- organized turned it into a mini dating thing- Your date was the person with the room above or below you and you were supposed to hang out with them during formal dinner and "date them". Well haha mine turns out to be Will , the American from my program who lives in my wing so I already knew him AND his girl friend has actually been here for the past two weeks visiting him so you could say it would have been awkward but no, it was actually really fun and formal dinner was quite yummy. Such a fun tradition.

Wednesday ehh- hate wednesdays my class from 5-7 BUT ville wednesdays makes up for it and this time we went to a malaysian food place, which was deliciousssssss. I got this tofu stir fry veggies thing with a mongolian barbecue sauce yum. probably my favorite place so far! and of course ice cream after well ice cream I mean gelato! so good, such a fun tradition and then after dinner around 9 the college hosted an american idol type competition called "college idol" original I know, and so we went to see the girl who was representing our college... I was not impressed having heard her sing before however she ended up winning somehow... not sure how that happened but we only stayed to cheer her on and then left but apparently she was the best of the worst. But definitely props to her for being able to get up in front of tons of people and sing!

Thursday: NIGHT 1 OF LIZ'S BIRTHDAY FEST/WEEKEND MADNESS Again with the birthdays you say? and I agree there have been so many but this one was extra special because she has become one of my good friends here and she was turning 21 and I don't have classes on fridays and! I hadn't gone out in a while so it was time to rageeee! We ended up going to the exchange that night with a couple of colleges who I cannot remember that this time who they were but we went to a place called Fridays, which was actually a quite classy place but had the best drink- which I was informed about prior to going called Red Rum. It is like a jack and coke but a different type of rum, a sweeter kind of rum and oh em gee it was delicious! very very very fun night was had by all, including the pre birthday girl who's real birthday was saturday/friday night at mid-night!

Sophie, Nhat, Nicole + Me at Fridays!

Friday: day of recovering ish plus part 2 of LIZ'S BIRTHDAY WEEKEND MADNESS! Tonight she chose to go to a very very seedy place called Down Under or referred to everyone else as Dunder... It is known to be seedy and dirty.. aka the best place to turn 21. It was a group of us about 10 and it ended up being fun, we found this platform near some tables and were dancing there all night long until the clock struck 12 when we just went crazy. Then me and sophie and two of our guy friends decided Dunder was just too seedy to handle [old men would literally just sit at the tables and stare at us dancing, like 50 year old men. ew?] so we moved on to our favorite place called the EMBASSSSSSY and drank and danced the night away (:

Saturday: My second rugby game experience! Sophie and I were invited by our fav Kiwi (New Zealander) downstairs to go to the game and cheer on the Reds as they took on the Cheetahs, very odd names I know but it was still really really fun! Minus the part where our seats were in the blazing down sun the entire time so when at the end of the 80 minutes at the end of the game we were literally covered in sweat.. but eh! Then that night we really celebrated Liz's 21st because it was her actual birthday. We started at the Friday's bar again because they gave her a deal that if she brought 20 people with her the bar would give her a free $100 bar tab! Which she then proceeded to spend on us nicely (: but once the bar tab was gone we immediately left (oops) and club hopped the night away. Did I mention that for her bday Sophie, Nhat and I made jello shots for all of us to pre-drink with? lets just say it was a very deadly night

Sunday 27: We literally all just layed around in the middle of the quad on sheets sleeping all day long. I have never seen 10 people so physically dead and exhausted and hung over at one time. it was honestly the most ridiculous thing and woah I definitely don't think I would be able to survive that again. But I mean minus when I turn 21 though, then it's definitely on (: But at 4 pm my wing had a soccer game vs another one of the wings which I participated in just to make my body move and to do something minus laying around and doing work all day. It turned out to be a really fun time, most of us just joked around and even did some dives when the ball was on the complete other side of the field just to make fun of prof soccer players. Although my team did not win 5-4 (we only stopped because everyone got super hungry at 530) it was a ton of fun, GO MEIKY! and thus another week came to an end!

WEEK 5
really? for realz?

monday: nothing. boring. picked classes for miami because drum roll:

Tuesday: scheduling day! well not till 10 pm because I had to wait till 8 am Miami time- meh so clearly all day I was extremely nervous because scheduling is always stressful, and yeah. But thank goodness 10 pm came and went and I got everything that I needed/wanted sooo yay go me! (:

Wednesday: nothing happened today really except ville wednesday! tonight we went to a place called Curry Connection and yum yum yum i got the best curry thing ever with garlic naan and yummy yoghurt sauce and yum yum ice cream after. great day and tomorrow = an exchange so it should be A GREAT WEEKEND COMING (:

miss everyone xo-

Smell like a man, man. Rugby, play like one too!

Every week here is action packed honestly going back home is going to be sad because I'm going to miss all the funtivities that happen constantly here- plus all the people who have made so far in australia pretty amazinggg!

The last time I blogged I believe it was Saturday the 12... it is now the 20th so a bunch to catch up on!

Sunday 13- ehh I don't think anything too exciting happened, of all days sundays are the most boring here because everyone is just doing work in prep for the week. Which I guess does make sense because due we are here to go to uni but honestly... it's lame- there should be something fun. Well actually I take it back Sunday's here are "Hawaiian themed" so we all wear tropicalish clothing and have a bbq for lunch with yummy food but thats not a funtivity!

Monday 14- Ben from downstairs turned 21. wooooah was that a mess for him, and most of all of us who celebrated with him. I didn't go out of the college to the bars with him because I have an early class on tuesday's but wow he got so so drunk. Ben is one of the americans who is not here with my program but one through his school, Dickinson, so clearly unlike the Australian's turning 21 is a huge deal. Talking to him the next morning he does not remember a thing past 7 pm so I guess that's a great sign. Also every monday the entire college comes together for a weekly meeting called "pound" I think I may have mentioned it before in previous postings but this week's pound was really fun because they finally got the slide show to work and let's just say they had many scandalous photos of tons of people hooking up since the beginning of school. That always just makes me laugh.

Tuesday: Ash turned 22! or as he was referring to it, the first anniversary of his 21st birthday. I like this better as well. Ash is one of the exec members of the college, I think he's VP but I could be wrong, and he's become someone who I have become pretty good friends with so tonight I had to go out and celebrate! We actually ended up having a surprise event anyway where they rented out a bar for us so it worked out and we got free transportation there! (never get it back though because that would be too hard to organize and they would have to waste money paying the bus drivers to just sit outside whatever bar we go to) We went to me and Sophie's favorite bar called Embassy. (We previously visited this heavenly place on our last stop during pub crawl during O Week) and what makes it our favorite place are the Sex on the Beach Jugs for $10. which allow you to consume oodles amounts of alcohol for a relatively cheap price compared to everything that we have found down under! We all ended up having a great great night that for some rather than others went later but all and all I know Ash definitely had a fun time and celebrating birthdays are the best so it was extremely fun... here is a pic of the 3 of us drinking our fav drink!

Wednesday 16: happpy happppy HALF birthday to me! I have miraculously made it halfway through my 20th year! (crazy I know, but then again I am soo close to that magic 21) Class was okay, actually no I take that back- I hate hate hate wednesdays in regards to classes because I only have one class for the entire day and it's at 5 pm and waiting to go to class, when it's really a class that I am not too interested in anyway IS LAME. But as is Wednesday's tradition we tried our next restaurant at the ville. It was a japanese place called Edamame! soo sooo goood, I got this wonderful noodle dish with tons of fresh veggies, tofu, and the most delicious spices ever, and it was served to me on a wonderful wooden board? Which was quite silly actually because when I tried to pour soy sauce onto the noodles it was a flat board so it kinda went anywhere but ehh! still yummy. Not my favorite place though and not exactly sure if I would ever go back- we will have to see. Tonight also was someone else's birthdays but there is only so many times I can celebrate so Isa I am sorry that I did not party for your 20th birthday but I know that you definitely had a good time and that is all that counts. I also did not go out on Wednesday because the next day was ST. PATTTTYS DAYYY!

ST. PAT'S DAY! 17- Arguably one of the most fun holiday's on the American calendar and boy did us Americans really do it justice this year! Not sure if I mentioned this or not but I got a job here as a waitress for the weekly formal dinners at the college and the other events that the college may host so at 2 pm after my classes had finished I went to set up for it- let me just say that minimum wage here for someone who is of the age of 20 is 20 dollars. It is outrageously AMAZING so set up took a while because we had to arrange the tables in the right direction and polish the silver utensils because tonight was the academic awards banquet for the people in the college who had gotten gpa's of 6 and above. (I think that the equivalent of their 6 is like a 3.5? But you cannot quote me on that, I honestly have no idea- I just know that it is out of 7 so in all my classes I am striving to get either 6s or 7s) So after setup I went back to an American's room and hung out with them before having to go back at 530 to serve the dinner and woah were they having a WONDERFUL TIME. Having started drinking at 11 then were all sloshed but it was still fun to hang with them- they put some of their green juice (I call it juice for lack of any idea what type of alcohol was in it, and because it was green it kinda looked like juice) in a nice water bottle for me and told me to drink it after I got off work. Anyways at 530 I worked the dinner until unfortunately 1030, which was good the amount of money I made but it took away precious partying on St. Pat's day time! Whatever! After I got out I dressed in my best green outfit and hit the town! Caught up with all of them at the local irish bar (the Pig 'n' Whistle) and celebrated the wonderful holiday in style!

Friday- tough to get up day! but I don't have any uni on friday so it worked out for the best! (: had a lazy day of shopping and walking around Brisbane until after dinner when a few of us girls (me morgan and soph) went with some of the Aussie boys to the Red v. Rebels Rugby Union game in downtown Brisbane! Tickets were cheap because we are students and because you buy tickets online and print them out you can get free transportation on the public transportation system if you just flash the ticket! So that was awesome. The game started at 740 and honestly was probably the best sporting event that I have ever been to/watched. Rugby Union is 80 minutes of NONSTOP ACTION, and when I say nonstop I mean LITERALLY NO STOPS. No timeouts, no tv commercials, no injury time- yes there is a half time but that was rather short. And they just play- it was honestly the coolest thing to watch and sitting there with a 5 dollar beer in my hand watching sports was heaven. Plus, one of the guys was sitting next to me explaining to me the rules the entire time so I wasn't lost which was super nice of him. The Brisbane team- The Reds ended up killing the other team 53-3 so although it wasn't an excting game for someone who watches rugby, I throughly enjoyed it! After we just went back to college and hung out, pretty chill night.

Saturday 19- ehh nothing too crazy happened yesterday other than it down poured all day :( which stinks but still got some fun bonding time in with the people in the college so I was pretty happy about that.

Today: rain as well but this morning at 730 I played tennis for emmanuel and won my singles game giving us just the amount of points to beat Union College (our opponent this morning) Yay, it was so much fun to go out and play tennis, plus I got to wear the cool Emmanuel College singlet that all the athletes wear so win win win.

So not too much fun themed stuff this week but should be a fun week coming up I hope!

Miss you all (:

One Word To Describe Australia- AWESOME

Woah a toooon of fun stuff has happened since the last time I updated this thing, so hopefully I can remember it all and with good details!

Soo I left off that I was waiting for class to be at 5 pm which was ehh- the class doesn't seem like it will be too hard just the whole missing the free dinner thing is a bummer BUT a group of us have started to go out to dinner one night a week (I convinced them all to go out Wednesdays so I wouldn't have to eat alone- smart I know) so when I get to a week from this wednesday later in the blog I will talk about our first big night out! So Wednesday the 2nd nothing really exciting happened...

Thursday March 3- ehh average day, had my two morning classes then I am done for the weekend at 130! wooot, I love not having classes on fridays, hopefully I can continue the trend back at Miami for the fall? that would be awesome... but I was sad because technically I was missing out on Green Beer Day back at school and from the looks of everyone's pictures it was a huge day! From George Clooney shooting his movie on campus to lots and lots of green beer consumption. Eh honestly I guess it's okay because IM IN AUSTRALIA HAVING A BLAST ANYWAY! and I will definitely participate in GBD next year (:

Friday March 4: the day of all days. The first all college exchange was held at the college named Cromwell. Our cheer about them is CROM-WHO? CROM WHO? silly I know but when you get a bunch of people yelling it over and over in a small controlled environment where lots of people are excited to be cheering against them it really gets the crowd going. but back to the exchange, which in australian just means an a social with another college, so an all college exchange would be a social with all 10 OF THE COLLEGES AKA INSANITY. The theme of this one was things you would find in a toy box! clever I thought and I had never done that theme before so I was pretty excited! However it rained pretty hard all day friday, that did not stop us from going out and having a blast though! Me, Morgan and Sophie decided to be pieces of a puzzle and the puzzle made up the wonderful country we are currently residing in- see the featured picture! I drew the country on a huge piece of cardboard, then we painted on the australian flag and cut the country into 3 pieces (plus tasmania was attached on the bottom of sophie's section- people in aussie were concerned about it so we added it) and then we stole some serran wrap from the dinning hall to wrap the pieces to make sure that the paint did not wash off in the rain! WHICH IT DID NOT! it turned out to be such a fun night! and my puzzle piece survived, it is hanging in my room- yay middle australia, I believe I got the bush/outback! part of the country...

saturday was nothing special, we were all struggling the next morning from the night before and just hung out- I believe some shopping may or may not have happened, which is never good for my bank account but wonderful for my wardrobe! Then that night a few of us who were still hurting from the night before- aka all the americans because we clearly cannot keep up with the aussies, they drink everyone under the table decided to watch (with one of our new zealand buds) their highest grossing movie to come out of NZ called BOY. ... ... ... let me just say it was no hollywood movie and it was like watching Napoleon Dynamite but worse x10000 bahaha those silly Kiwis!

Sunday March 6: clean up australia day!! A few of us from the college, like 40 of us, signed up to go at 9 am and help out by volunteering with flood relief stuff and picking up trash around the community. It was a really nice thing to do and they rewarded us with free UQ hats and free lunch! basically you say the word free in front of anything that I find appealing and you can probably get me there pretty easily. It was also really eye opening because we got to see all the damage that had been done to the country and let me say those floods certainly were nasty! Then for the first time all semester I actually did some homework! I know, you guys are super proud of me! I am proud of myself as well, but I mean hey I guess I am actually here to go to college- who knew this was not just one big vacation! kidding mom and dad!

Monday: week 2 of classes begins! and thankfully I only have one class on mondays, international journalism.. (: the focus of the class= American Journalism so if I don't do well in this class or get anything less than a 7 (which is an A, they do their grades on a 1-7 scale where 5 is passing...) it will be extremely embarrassing not only for me but America in general so clearly I cannot let that happen or suffer the consequences! But that night we had our weekly meeting in the college (called POUND) cause our mascot is the blue bulldogs! Which was really fun, the exec works hard to put on a nice show for us which is really appreciated! After classes finished, a group of us americans- Will, Nyat, Me, Morgan, and Sophie went to the Modern Gallery of Art in downtown Brisbane- it was free of course and wooooah it was the coolest thing ever. I will post photos soon but it had some of the most fun exhibits that I have ever been too including a room entirely filled with balloons that you could just run through for hours, a "cube" shaped room that was extremely trippy- look for that photo on my fb- and other cool exhibits including one where they will send a postcard for free. aka home look out for a postcard addressed to from the future! (: such a fun free day that I will definitely not forget in Briz-Vegas.

Tuesday: my yucky class day, which I got through, barely, it was tough I forgot what going to 3 classes felt like! but then at night we had our first all college sporting event! SWIM CARNIVALLLLL! which is code for a swim meet against all the colleges. It was really fun, everyone painted them selves in all blue and wore ridiculous costumes- I of course did not paint myself in all blue but definitely had some war paint to show off. We aren't the best at the sporting events and that was clearly proven, but we definitely have the most spirit and cheer out of any of the 10 colleges which was really exciting. A few of my friends swam in the event so it was fun to cheer them on! We ended up coming in 5th for the girls and 4th for the boys, so not too bad but clearly there were some races we could just not compete in- I'm told our college is good at rugby, which i am STOKED to watch. Then since we had missed dinner for the carnival, we all ran to the vill (village down the road with food places) and went to the famous kebab shop! aka the only place that is open past 9 pm any night aka drunk munchies! yummmmm! the hummus and the pita and the falafel were just win win wins!

Wednesday March 10: yuck as I said in my previous post, wednesdays are not my friends for the sole reason that I don't have class till 5 pm! and then I miss dinner! BUT this Wednesday we started our vill restaurant crawl that I mentioned above and went to a place called A Salt and Battery! Which was the best fish and chips place I have ever been too. Since there ended up being 8 of us we were able to get the group "banquet" style which consisted of, 2 huge chips spreads (when I say chips i mean FRIES), 4 full salads (greek, house, cesear, and some other yummy one) and then the night's fish special which was salmon! and that was cooked in 3 ways, grilled, breaded and fried! soo yummy and for only 12 dollars a person! which ended up being a ton a food. plus the place was a b.y.o. (yes marissa I guess they exist outside of philly) so we enjoyed some nice wine and got yummmmy ice cream afterwards! god this countries food is DELICIOUS! so it made my wednesday alright!

Thursday: another all college exchange!! This time there was no theme unfortunately but it was still massive and a ton of fun! it was located at a bar in the valley which is the club scene of Briz-Vegas, and not too far away from the college, which is good for the taxi ride back when you have a ton of people to split it with! It was at a bar called Birdees which is 3 floors of bars and dance floors, and they are really cool and usually sponsor a lot of the exchanges which happen on campus. There ended up being soo many people there but it gave us a chance to meet people from other colleges and I ended up meeting a ton of new people who hopefully I will be able to hang out with more in the future! yay meeting people, especially aussie's who like my accent, which is funny because I am dying to have theirs!

Friday: nothing too special happened, just recovery from the exchange and no class (: a few of us went to the local mall and purchased some items for the wonderful holiday which is approaching of ST. PATRICK'S DAY- which I am told they don't really celebrate here but honestly that is no excuse and we have all decided that we will be those tacky American's who celebrate it (:

Saturday March 12 aka today! PROBABLY ONE OF THE MOST EPIC DAYS I HAVE HAD SO FAR IN AUSTRALIA. we got up at 6 am to make the 645 bus because today was a trip day through my IFSA BUTLER program. (We do one trip a month as a big group that is paid for in our IFSA fees) and today we went to Morton Islanddd!! Morton Island, for those who don;t know, is the 3rd largest sand island in the entire world and let me tell you it was RIDICULOUS. we were able to go sand boarding/tobogganing down the steepest hill of all time, face first. omg what a rush, it was unlike anything that I have ever done before in my life and possibly one of the coolest things ever, you don't just go down, you go down FACE FIRST! and get up to huge speeds! woah what a rush. Also to get to these wonderful hills, you have to take a 2 hr long ferry then have to drive in what look like tanks on a sand road through mountains, it was definitely an experience but one that I am glad I participated in- Also I went down the hill many times, but walking back up it to return the board was a bitchhhhh. Then we had lunch, lovely Subway provided by IFSA Butler. did you know subway is the largest fast foodish chain in the world. there is a subway every block it seems in australia. many more than mcdonalds which was extremely surprising to me. Also they have the 7 dollar foot long, which is funny because the 5 dollar footlong song definitely sounds better and is nicer on my wallet! Then after lunch we went snorkeling around old ship wrecks and open water. I can say with confidence and people can back me up that I did it! Not that I wasn't secretly having a panic attack after we saw 2 sharks just casually swim by, but it was really really cool and I'm glad I decided to not sit out and miss it. The fish were gorgeous and the water was so warm. yay summer. Then we chilled on the beach for a while and then rode the ferry back, grabbed dinner just in time to be able to eat in the dinning hall before it closed, and then took a loooong shower- After being at the beach all day long sand gets everywhere I've realized and you just need to embrace it. Also after dinner tonight we/ all the americans sat down together and started to plan out our trips for the next couple of weekends. It looks like we are going to do a two day one night camping trip to Fraiser Island, and then spring break in NZ (: which i am sooo stoked about.

ahhh I am having such a great time here, the next couple of days look pretty chill thank goodness but you never know about Australia they go big!

miss all of you xoxo!

Hot Hot Heat!

Wooooza it's like 96 degrees outside! Not having aircon (as they call it in aussie land) is starting to become a real pain. But all the "ra's" have it in there rooms so I have been mostly just hanging out in their rooms (: I have a ton of catching up to do on here, it's been a while since I last posted and a ton of stuff has happened!

Okay so I believe I left off at Market Day. The freshman/fresher dance. Oy vey that was a mess! The dance itself was actually very well choreographed however there was one move where everyone had to get on the ground and like do this thing which I couldn't even begin to explain however there being like 120 freshers and the stage being much smaller than they anticipated not everyone could do the move so us stuck in the middle/back (yes that was totally on purpose) just ended up squatting awkwardly. The song we danced to was Usher's More. [aka I can never hear that song or boom boom boom again because it will bring back oh so wonderful O Week memories] We also had to wear our lovely BLUE (kill me if I get another blue shirt, the colors of Emmanuel College are BLUE and WHITE - of course they are) Fresher shirts so everyone could see our awesomeness. But the fair turned out really cool actually there are like a bazillion societies for every major and a club for every kind of activity that you could ever think or even imagine about joining. I guess there are perks to going to an enormous school! I opted to join the Quest Club, a club for international students were they arrange trips to places around Aussie for you + activities that would normally be extremely touristy... hopefully that works out! I was also extremely tempted to join the wine and cheese society however the admission fee was 10 Aussie Dollars and I could think of a couple of things I would rather be spending my money on instead of that. After market day we were all still kind of hurting from the pub crawl the night before so we just layed out on the quad, took a glorious nap then put on our lovely UGLY clothes (Finally!!) and had a Ugly Dinner. But actually they grouped it together with another event which was pretty cool called "Global Dinner". When you first walked into the room you picked from a box the name of a country and you were assigned to go sit at that country's table (Or lack of). I unfortunately chose Afghanistan and was left without a table or any silverware. There were other countries such a the US, Aussie, England who had lavish seating and expensive cutlery and other countries such as Sudan and Brazil who had ehh okay stuff I guess. Then they served us the portion that would be alloted to that country as if you were actually living there and while we ate they read out facts about world poverty and health, and being Afghanistan we even had a representative from the American table come and sit with us for a while, how appropriate and funny I guess. Food wise my table (or lack of) ended up with 3 tortillas for the 10 of us to split so we were over joyed when they announced at the end of the event that you could actually go eat dinner now.. :P Then after the dinner we had a talent portion where people had been signing up all week and some people did really good things, and some people like my silly wing (they call the different halls in the college wings) which's nickname is Mickey did a 30 second dance to "Hey Mickey" but one girl sang and it was VERY legit. My favorite act consisted of two silly Fresher boys doing a GLORIOUS DANCE to "Sexy Can I" I was extremely impressed by how well they actually did. Afterwards people just hung out and drank and some went off to the bars but taking a taxi is just a silly waste of money especially if I didn't want to be out that long so a few of us just drank around the college!

Thursdayyy Feb. 24: Toga Toga Toga! Today was the last day we were woken up, at a lovely 7 am! Finally a somewhat normal time ish, or at least normal for those who are going to have an 8 am sometime this semester which I am not! And we all had to put on our Fresher shirts so they could take a Fresher picture! Yay memories! Then we were told they wanted to take an arial shot of us so we went under one of the balconies and after snapping a couple of photos out of no where came a lovely HUGE shower of water and then flour all over our lovely shirts! After being directly hit with tons and tons of flour I quickly ran to the shower in an attempt to not only get it off my body because it's not a pleasant feeling to have wet flour all over you but because I didn't want my shirt to get ruined- I think it was okay but thank goodness I wasn't picking flour out of my hair all day like some girls!! Nice way to start out the morning. After that a few of us went into Brisbane City to see some of the sights and do a little shopping. The clothes here, gosh they are so darn cute! Brisbane is a very nice city as well (You can see it by looking at my fb photos). When we got back in time for dinner they announced the night's activity... a toga party! But first there was going to be a wedding! Two people at the beginning of O-Week had been given the Fresher names of Bride and Groom, so clearly they had to get married. IT was cute, the exec had set up a nice pavilion for a ceremony and the people who were given the names mom and dad walked the bride and groom down the aisle respectively , just a fun and silly overall event- but getting back to TOGA! Having seen animal house many times clearly I was VERY excited (: But I did not come as prepared as some people having multiple sheets that go on my bed so I was forced to borrow a purple fitted sheet which just ended up looking like a hot mess in the way I pinned it but it still looked a little silly, oh well this was probably the most drunk night for everyone so no one really cared that much! That is the bow from the groom's outfit which I managed to borrow to make my outfit that much more complete. Sexy I know.

FRIDAY: SLEEEEEEEPT IN. Well sort of, we were all going to the water park Wet 'n' Wild! At 9 am sharp! so I got more sleep than normal but not enough that in the states would be acceptable! However Wet 'n' Wild was probably one of the best water parks that I have been too in a while, it had so many slides, a wave pool, and a roller coaster type thing which let you free fall while spinning for 50 seconds. Such a fun fun day and I didn't manage to get any sunburn at all! yay go me! That night however we/ my group of people/ decided to take it easy because the next day we decided that we were going to go to COOLANGATTA Beach in the Gold Coast to see the 2011 QuickSilver Surfing Competition and Kelly Slater!!! We figured we could just go for a night and beach during the day, ah Aussie and all the wonderful life possibilities that come with extremely easy public transportation!

Saturday: took the train to COOLANGATTA and immediately dropped our stuff off at the hostel, which was nicer than the one I had previously stayed at before in Surfers Paradise because it was a "YHA" which stands for like Youth Hostel Association and is a national thing around Australia so they are known for being nicer but not expensive! yay! And we hit the beach, called Kirra. So SO SO pretty, probably the best beach I have ever been too, the sand was SO NICE as well as it wasn't too crowded because everyone was watching the competition. After lying on the beach a few of us decided to walk to the competition where it was a mad house and I may or may not have seen Kelly Slater surf (; Surfing is really cool if you are good at it or have any balance at all but after doing it that one time in Sydney I learned that maybe my skills lie elsewhere! After that we just layed on the beach practically all day until dinner which we decided to venture out and found this lovely Mexican Restaurant Called Montezumas! What made it even better was that we were allowed to get Margs while we ate the Mexican food, oh this wonderful country! and then we all got back to the hostel and like immediately crashed due to the loooong day at the beach.

Sunday: some of us left early to get back in time to meet all the second and third years who were finally moving into the college, while others stayed at the beach to get in another day. I left early and thank goodness I did because my wing is one of those who tons of second years live in and I definitely wanted to meet new people! Plus, tomorrow (monday was my first day of the semester! and I had to get all prepared for school!) All the girls in the hall moved in, and the boys down stairs as well and it was really fun getting to meet them and helping them and stuff. They are all groups of friends who lived together in different wings last year who are now living with small groups in this wing. You can tell in my hall at least there are two distinct groups but I seem to have settled into a cute one with Two girls from Australia, One from Malaysia and One from America who after coming here for fall semester last year decided to full on transfer and attend here full time. SO COOL. They are all great and two of them have cars, which hopefully will come in handy. Plus they are all friends with a lot of people and boys around the college which will definitely help me meet more and more people! That night a few of us/ mostly the second and third years in the college decided to go to the Red Room (the on campus bar) and have a couple of drinks and get to know eachother. Yes, Aussie's even drink on Sunday NIGHTS! I didn't stay out that late though because MONDAY MORNING I HAD CLASS

Monday! First Day of Classes! I had one. from 10-1150. and then i was done for the day bahaha! That is my mondays! It was international journalism and we spent a majority of the class talking about American Journalism so I am not too worried about that class AT ALL (: But for the rest of the day I just hung out and walked around the college, tried to find the buildings that my other classes were in for the rest of the week and get errands done! Later our college had it's first "exchange" of the semester, meeting we met another college at a bar and had a social with them. It was craazy the amount of people that were there and how crazy of party-ers they are. I know I keep repeating this fact over and over but honestly I am still impressed EVERY SINGLE TIME! I had fun though but had to be back early because I had a 9 am and a 4 pm the next day

Tuesday: My 9 am is the class that I will be dropping. Actually I did drop it. Before even coming to the Uni they told us that we should only be taking 4 classes but I signed up for 5 and figured I would drop one, well I found it. Television and Popular Culture, Miami wasn't giving me course credit, just hours for the class and after watching an episode of the Jersey Shore in class and discussing it, I knew it was the class that I could live without. However my 4 pm class, Mass Media and Society, looks to be extremely fun and interesting! Thank goodness it is going to get out early every week though because 4-550 is a terrible class time, and formal dinners are on tuesdays at 6 so I don't want to be late and miss out on those! Speaking of that, we had one last night- ehh not bad! There were just so many people crammed into the dinning hall at one time that it got very hot very quickly so by the time that they were supposed to give speeches, everyone was very anxious to get out of there!! Fun night activity though, a group of us sat in the airconditioned common room and made friendship bracelets and just played cards. They had early classes today (Wed.)

I don't have class till 5 pm today ! yuck! 5-650. SUCH A GROSS CLASS TIME. plus it will mean I will miss dinner! I guess it's finally time for me to buy my first meal off campus! good I guess. But then it's free week at the gym so a group of us are doing pole dancing at 730. I will definitely update you guys on how that goes!

Well that's it from down under. If you have any questions or anything message me!

stay cool!