So. I'm currently working on one of my scientific reports for my coral reef ecology class. We have to write it in a specific journal format and I have a page limit. Now, I never thought I would ever have a problem with page limits because I'm usually too concise, but now it seems like I'm cutting things out left and right. I have a 6 page limit, I'm at 4 pages and I haven't even touched my introduction or my discussion/conclusion yet. Plus now I have to sift through all of these articles to try to find evidence for what I find or explanations for disproving this and that. Either way, I have to finish this bad boy for 4pm on friday so I have tonight and tomorrow to get it together. Hence why I'm already on my 3rd cup of black tea, which apparently has more caffeine that coffee. Oh joy. It's only been 40 minutes. I think this means I will not be sleeping this evening.
On top of all that, I'm ridiculously stressed and preoccupied because I finally got that phone call about switching dorms. At this point I've already put some roots down here and I'm already completely settled in, so I have NO clue if I'm going to switch over or not. Of all the days to get that phone call, why today? And why did it have to come in the middle of my nap this morning?
Other than those little fiascoes, things are still going well. I got my first practical write up back for my invertebrate biology class and I was happy with the result based on how unclear the directions I had to go off of were. I ended up with a D, which is just below HD, their highest mark. It stands for High Distinction and Distinction. Basically what it means is that i got an 80% and all I need is another 5% points to get an HD. Once again, I'm happy with it seeing as I had really no idea what I was doing or what to expect and I'm positive I will master the two that are due next week.
I don't think I'll be making it to water polo this evening. I really want to churn out as much of this report as possible. And besides, I think they are doing some crazy swim set tonight that I really don't want to take part in. Last time I almost threw up dinner and that was just doing water polo style IM's with an underwater length between each stroke.
Okay! That is enough distraction from this report so I'm going to get back to it. Hopefully I will have another section done by dinner time in an hour :)
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Couples Night Out!
So last night was couples night and it was a huuuuge blast. Lisa and i went as peter pan and tinkerbell and spent a long time early friday hunting for items to make our outfits. I bought some lime green fabric and ended up sewing a dress type garment together to wear out and I found some purple children's fairy wings for $10 at the fabric store. We looked really classy and had a ton of fun! At 8 we all got on a big charter bus outside of the dorm that took us to the bar where we had the whole top floor booked for our private party from 8-11pm. During that time we had 2 free kegs and $2.50 basics until the floor opened up to the public again at 11. A lot of people were really REALLY plastered and for a little while i was in the bathroom making sure one girl didn't fall asleep and was getting some water into her. I tried to set an alarm on her cell but those damn blackberry phones are much too sophisticated for me to handle. Anyways, I did some quality dancing with a lot of people and at one point Scotty asked me if I had ever been dipped before. I told him Dan dipped me all the time because hes a really fun/good dancer, but Scotty wanted to prove his skilled so he dragged me out to the dance floor. Unfortunately, Scotty was really piss drunk and dipped me, hit my head on the floor, dropped me, and then proceeded to fall on top of me while my knee was raised. I'm surprised that I somehow didn't hit him in his pertinent parts. Luckily I recovered just fine and got back up and just hoped everyone was too drunk to notice the fact that my dress had come up upon falling and that everyone could see my underwear. Note to self, you never know when you're going to get dropped, so don't wear non-pants out. I think the only other unfortunate thing is that one kid from GR tried to get a little too friendly with me while dancing. I told him if he tried to put his hands anywhere near my skirt again that I'd kill him. He stopped. Problem solved! Just because people are drunk doesn't give them excuses to be creepy. But yes, the rest of the night was great and I did lots of singing and dancing with the girls. I was going to stay at GR last night, but we took the public bus home instead of the charter bus and just decided to get off at my dorm's stop so i could sleep in my own bed instead of on lisa's floor. I guess right after I had gotten off the bus some very large man of some sort of asian decent walked up and kissed Matt Dawes (one of the guys on the bus from GR) right on the mouth for a good few seconds and then walked off completely straight faced. I'm really sad that I had missed that.
Today there was a big 50% off sale at Stockies, the big mall near school. The girls and I went and did a little shopping and i got a nice 3/4 sleeve black dress with crazy back cutouts for going out in. The weird part is that it is knit, but still fairly cute, I think. So yes, it is now 7:30pm and I am ready for a rest.
Today there was a big 50% off sale at Stockies, the big mall near school. The girls and I went and did a little shopping and i got a nice 3/4 sleeve black dress with crazy back cutouts for going out in. The weird part is that it is knit, but still fairly cute, I think. So yes, it is now 7:30pm and I am ready for a rest.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Couples Night
Hey all, so this friday is couples night over at George Roberts Hall and what that means is it is basically a HUGE party at the college and everybody goes in pairs and dresses up as things that go together. I'm going with lisa and we were thinking maybe peter pan and wendy or peter pan and tinkerbell? It can be anything that goes together really, like salt and pepper, x's and o's, you catch my drift. Does anybody have any ideas? Please remember, after we start the party at the college we will be moving into town dressed as whatever we are so I don't want to be dressed in something that requires me to be in a box or large bulky costume that will prevent me from shaking my groove thang. So yes, PLEASE send some ideas my way!
Water Polo!
Today started off pretty hard. I stayed up really late talking to my neighbor last night (until 2am) and then I had to wake up at 8 this morning to get ready for class at 9. Class ended at 10 and I proceeded to take an hour long nap until I had to leave for my practical at 11:30. Prac ended at 1 instead of 12:50 so I was a little late getting to part two of my invertebrate biology class and ALMOST considered not going because I was so dang tired and those lectures are so boring, but I was a good student and I went.
Anywho, after class I got my water polo things and headed back to GR with lisa to do a little bit of reading and maybe just bum around until dinner at 5:45 and water polo at 6:30. Well, I managed to soldier through one of my articles for coral reef ecology that I had to read for this week and then around 3:30pm I fell asleep in lisa's bed for a good two hours. Really, I've been quite exhausted. We ended up going to dinner together and I was questioning water polo because it was a cold day here and the sun sets around 6, but I decided I was excited to go anyways and put on my swim suit and headed over to the pool. It seems that a lot of people were discouraged by the cold because there was a grand total of 6 of us, 5 guys and myself. It was all good though, My RA (the guy who talks to me about polo) was there and he told me who everybody was and we just ran some drills and then played 5-alive because there wasn't really much we could do with so few of us. their version of 5-alive is kind of cool, when you're shooting against somebody with 1 life left you have to backhand it and if you get someone out you don't go in, the person after you does, because otherwise you are getting punished for making a goal. I really liked that rule. They started off saying that they were going to shoot lefty against me because I was a girl, but I insisted they not hold back because that would just be crap. One of the guys agreed and mentioned that I could shoot, so really, there was no need to go easy on me. I ended up being the first one out but managed to save one goal with my face. BALLER. After 5-alive we just did some shooting and I think all of my shots went in. The really good guy (who also happens to be really ridiculously good looking) complemented me on my skillz. We were only in the pool for roughly an hour, but it was nice to just mess around with the guys in the pool. I am super excited about polo every monday and wednesday now and think its funny that I will most likely be the only girl playing.
Anywho, after class I got my water polo things and headed back to GR with lisa to do a little bit of reading and maybe just bum around until dinner at 5:45 and water polo at 6:30. Well, I managed to soldier through one of my articles for coral reef ecology that I had to read for this week and then around 3:30pm I fell asleep in lisa's bed for a good two hours. Really, I've been quite exhausted. We ended up going to dinner together and I was questioning water polo because it was a cold day here and the sun sets around 6, but I decided I was excited to go anyways and put on my swim suit and headed over to the pool. It seems that a lot of people were discouraged by the cold because there was a grand total of 6 of us, 5 guys and myself. It was all good though, My RA (the guy who talks to me about polo) was there and he told me who everybody was and we just ran some drills and then played 5-alive because there wasn't really much we could do with so few of us. their version of 5-alive is kind of cool, when you're shooting against somebody with 1 life left you have to backhand it and if you get someone out you don't go in, the person after you does, because otherwise you are getting punished for making a goal. I really liked that rule. They started off saying that they were going to shoot lefty against me because I was a girl, but I insisted they not hold back because that would just be crap. One of the guys agreed and mentioned that I could shoot, so really, there was no need to go easy on me. I ended up being the first one out but managed to save one goal with my face. BALLER. After 5-alive we just did some shooting and I think all of my shots went in. The really good guy (who also happens to be really ridiculously good looking) complemented me on my skillz. We were only in the pool for roughly an hour, but it was nice to just mess around with the guys in the pool. I am super excited about polo every monday and wednesday now and think its funny that I will most likely be the only girl playing.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
I actually have to do work now
So I'm now into week 3 of school and I actually have to start getting serious. My coral reef ecology class makes me exhausted after every lecture. I am being packed with so much information in that class it is crazy. I'm talking roughly 3 pages front and back of notes in a 50 minute class period. Fortunately, it is all new stuff and all we really have to do is a few readings and some lab reports which seem to be really quite manageable.
My invertebrate biology class is still kicking my butt. Lab is pretty boring, mainly because I can't focus my eyes properly in the microscope and drawing diagrams of animal tissues isn't exactly my idea of a good time. I had to turn in my first Practical (lab) report this past monday at noon, so hopefully I did everything that they asked for properly. I should be getting the grades back soon enough and will know then.
Photography class is still great! I have a lot of brainstorming left to do for my first project which is due the 27th. I also need to by a flashdrive because I have no idea where mine went...But yes! Raul is great and I have to start brainstorming pairs of opposites.
My biodiversity class is just weird. I don't really have much to do for it, but that is okay, i guess. We went on a fieldtrip this weekend to Rowe's bay to look at the biodiversity gradient of organisms along the coast while the tides were low. We saw a bunch of crabs, snails, and even a few brittle stars (these crazy star fish). My group members and I decided we didn't want to do the write up for this field trip, so we stopped taking notes and just proceeded to poke around at things and try to pick up the overly aggressive crabs. Another highlight of the trip was poking and moving the sea cucumbers..hehehe. For those of you who don't know, irritating them causes them to shoot out these while sticky tubules that look rather....silly. It didn't help that one of the professors along told us that they shoot their sticky stuff into the faces of fish to try to get them to go away. Hilarious.
Today I played hooky from biodiversity because i just couldn't stand staying awake from the 5 to 6 slot, but no worries, my lecturer basically reads directly from the slides which are all posted online. Also, it has been raining all day today! It was just lightly raining after dinner so Pranav and I went for a walk and had a little chat and currently I'm sitting in my room with my balcony door open and it is raining quite hard. It is really quite lovely, but it has forced a large dragonfly into my room which will definitely need to leave before I go to sleep later. I wish I could go for a run, but I feel like alone in the dark at 9pm isn't the safest time to go...oh well. In other news, I missed water polo on monday but saw Nick today (the guy in charge) and he cleared up times, so I will be getting in tomorrow for a little water polo action. I am definitely excited for that!
so yes, not much really going on now that class has started. It is cheap tuesday, but I'm inside doing work instead of going out because I am being a responsible student!
My invertebrate biology class is still kicking my butt. Lab is pretty boring, mainly because I can't focus my eyes properly in the microscope and drawing diagrams of animal tissues isn't exactly my idea of a good time. I had to turn in my first Practical (lab) report this past monday at noon, so hopefully I did everything that they asked for properly. I should be getting the grades back soon enough and will know then.
Photography class is still great! I have a lot of brainstorming left to do for my first project which is due the 27th. I also need to by a flashdrive because I have no idea where mine went...But yes! Raul is great and I have to start brainstorming pairs of opposites.
My biodiversity class is just weird. I don't really have much to do for it, but that is okay, i guess. We went on a fieldtrip this weekend to Rowe's bay to look at the biodiversity gradient of organisms along the coast while the tides were low. We saw a bunch of crabs, snails, and even a few brittle stars (these crazy star fish). My group members and I decided we didn't want to do the write up for this field trip, so we stopped taking notes and just proceeded to poke around at things and try to pick up the overly aggressive crabs. Another highlight of the trip was poking and moving the sea cucumbers..hehehe. For those of you who don't know, irritating them causes them to shoot out these while sticky tubules that look rather....silly. It didn't help that one of the professors along told us that they shoot their sticky stuff into the faces of fish to try to get them to go away. Hilarious.
Today I played hooky from biodiversity because i just couldn't stand staying awake from the 5 to 6 slot, but no worries, my lecturer basically reads directly from the slides which are all posted online. Also, it has been raining all day today! It was just lightly raining after dinner so Pranav and I went for a walk and had a little chat and currently I'm sitting in my room with my balcony door open and it is raining quite hard. It is really quite lovely, but it has forced a large dragonfly into my room which will definitely need to leave before I go to sleep later. I wish I could go for a run, but I feel like alone in the dark at 9pm isn't the safest time to go...oh well. In other news, I missed water polo on monday but saw Nick today (the guy in charge) and he cleared up times, so I will be getting in tomorrow for a little water polo action. I am definitely excited for that!
so yes, not much really going on now that class has started. It is cheap tuesday, but I'm inside doing work instead of going out because I am being a responsible student!
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Crazy Drunks
Last night I was all snuggled up and sleeping in my bed when suddenly I was woken up by rather loud banging on my door around 4am. At first I thought it was a mistake, but then somebody started calling "BAILEY". I hoped they would just leave, but the banging went on for a good 10 minutes. Turns out it was those norwegian guys that helped me with my internet that were temporarily housed here before O-week and school started. At first it was "BAILEY, open the door, it's Jonas!" After a few minutes of him yelling at me to open the door and me telling him to go away, he started saying that Henrich was there too. Finally I got up and opened my front door, only to realize that nobody was there. They had managed to climb up to my second floor balcony and were banging on my balcony door. I was started to get freaked out and they were yelling at me again to open the door because it was "time for the after party". Needless to say, I eloquently told them to get off of my balcony, that they had woken me up, and that I was absolutely not going open the door and was going back to bed.
I guess this is what happens when the on campus bar right across the street from my building, Uni Club, starts participating in cheap Tuesday so they get more business. If Cheap Tuesday at Uni club means having to listen to the music blaring until 3am and having crazed, muscular drunk foreign men banging on my balcony door then I hope they stop doing it and leave cheap tuesday to the bars downtown.
I guess this is what happens when the on campus bar right across the street from my building, Uni Club, starts participating in cheap Tuesday so they get more business. If Cheap Tuesday at Uni club means having to listen to the music blaring until 3am and having crazed, muscular drunk foreign men banging on my balcony door then I hope they stop doing it and leave cheap tuesday to the bars downtown.
Airlie Beach
This past weekend was loads of fun. Jeppo and Steph drove us down to Proserpine/Airlie Beach, which is where they are from. It was a 3 hour drive and just really nice to relax and see what another part of this country is like. We left around noon on saturday and when we arrived at Jeppo's house her mom had homemade quiche and a spaghetti-like dish hot and waiting for us. Let me just say homecooked food is GREAT and it was definitely quite a treat. Her mom's quiche was fantastic and the crust was perfectly light and flaky...yum! Anyways, all of us ended up taking a huge nap after eating because we were all pretty tired from the op-shop (goodwill ugly clothing) party on campus the night before.
After our 3-ish hour long nap we chatted a little bit and steph and her brother came over and we then headed off to Cactus Jack's in Airlie Beach for dinner at 8pm. I was a little bit skeptical about having mexican food in australia but the fajitas I got were phenomenal! They put some weird sort of bbq like sauce on them, but regardless, delish! We were all pretty tired and didn't plan on really going out afterward, but decided we had to at least walk around a little bit and check a few things out as long as we were there. We went to a club called Evolutions which was basically deserted because it was only 10. We did a lot of sitting on the couches there, but after awhile of course I had to debut some of my sweet gucinski dance moves. After Evolutions we moved to Mama Africa's and thats when I peed and discovered they have animal print toilet seats there! Unfortunately for Mama Africa's, we left soon after arriving and went back to Jeppo's. We moved a bunch of mattresses into the garage and basically all sleep in a big mosh of people.
Sunday morning Jeppo's mom made really tasty toast, tea, and berry and chocolate pancakes. After a very long and tasty breakfast we headed back to Airlie beach to hang out at the lagoon. The lagoon is basically a GIANT multi-sectioned pool right on the shore overlooking the harbor that anybody can swim in (for free) because jellyfish are such a problem in the actual ocean. We had a beautiful view of all of the boats and did a little bit of swimming and a little bit of tanning. It was definitely a low key day but It probably couldn't have been more perfect. Stephs mom came down with sausages so we could have a sausage sizzle on one of the public grills that are all over place. I had 3 sausages because they were so tasty and proceeded to walk around with the most giant food baby in my swim suit. It was definitely an excellent weekend!! We didn't do a lot of partying, but I was definitely okay with that. I think next time we go we are going to hit up a few of the whitsunday islands.
Monday and today were pretty uneventful, althought I did have a great conversation with my photography professor. I found out that hes from colombia and we spoke a little bit of spanish. He told me that I had a really good accent and that said that I should write all of my artist statements for my folios in spanish so I could practice. He also said from now on he will only speak to me in class in spanish so i can get more practice, so we'll see how that goes. Long story short, Raul is awesome.
Today was laundry day. There is something really gratifying about sun drying laundry on my balcony. I sat in my room and listened to a little bit of Jack Johnson and just really enjoyed the sunshine and the smell of clean laundry!! Tomorrow I will have to drag my dark load over to the main building so that I can dry my jeans so they re-shrink. Other than that, I got a lot more excellent information from my coral reef ecology class. Every time I go there I feel like my brain is going to explode from all of the new stuff, but it really is great because for the most part it is all stuff I haven't heard before. Right now I'm finishing up some handwashing, despite it being cheap tuesday. I'm playing it low key this week and not going out. I've been fairly congested and Lisa and Aleks are both really sick right now, so I'm trying to rest up and stay healthy so I don't end up like them, especially because I'm generally around them all the time.
After our 3-ish hour long nap we chatted a little bit and steph and her brother came over and we then headed off to Cactus Jack's in Airlie Beach for dinner at 8pm. I was a little bit skeptical about having mexican food in australia but the fajitas I got were phenomenal! They put some weird sort of bbq like sauce on them, but regardless, delish! We were all pretty tired and didn't plan on really going out afterward, but decided we had to at least walk around a little bit and check a few things out as long as we were there. We went to a club called Evolutions which was basically deserted because it was only 10. We did a lot of sitting on the couches there, but after awhile of course I had to debut some of my sweet gucinski dance moves. After Evolutions we moved to Mama Africa's and thats when I peed and discovered they have animal print toilet seats there! Unfortunately for Mama Africa's, we left soon after arriving and went back to Jeppo's. We moved a bunch of mattresses into the garage and basically all sleep in a big mosh of people.
Sunday morning Jeppo's mom made really tasty toast, tea, and berry and chocolate pancakes. After a very long and tasty breakfast we headed back to Airlie beach to hang out at the lagoon. The lagoon is basically a GIANT multi-sectioned pool right on the shore overlooking the harbor that anybody can swim in (for free) because jellyfish are such a problem in the actual ocean. We had a beautiful view of all of the boats and did a little bit of swimming and a little bit of tanning. It was definitely a low key day but It probably couldn't have been more perfect. Stephs mom came down with sausages so we could have a sausage sizzle on one of the public grills that are all over place. I had 3 sausages because they were so tasty and proceeded to walk around with the most giant food baby in my swim suit. It was definitely an excellent weekend!! We didn't do a lot of partying, but I was definitely okay with that. I think next time we go we are going to hit up a few of the whitsunday islands.
Monday and today were pretty uneventful, althought I did have a great conversation with my photography professor. I found out that hes from colombia and we spoke a little bit of spanish. He told me that I had a really good accent and that said that I should write all of my artist statements for my folios in spanish so I could practice. He also said from now on he will only speak to me in class in spanish so i can get more practice, so we'll see how that goes. Long story short, Raul is awesome.
Today was laundry day. There is something really gratifying about sun drying laundry on my balcony. I sat in my room and listened to a little bit of Jack Johnson and just really enjoyed the sunshine and the smell of clean laundry!! Tomorrow I will have to drag my dark load over to the main building so that I can dry my jeans so they re-shrink. Other than that, I got a lot more excellent information from my coral reef ecology class. Every time I go there I feel like my brain is going to explode from all of the new stuff, but it really is great because for the most part it is all stuff I haven't heard before. Right now I'm finishing up some handwashing, despite it being cheap tuesday. I'm playing it low key this week and not going out. I've been fairly congested and Lisa and Aleks are both really sick right now, so I'm trying to rest up and stay healthy so I don't end up like them, especially because I'm generally around them all the time.
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