Weekend in Proserpine

This whole past week was horribly stressful and at times this giant paper I had due at 5pm on friday had put me to tears. Well, my friend Jeppo was headed home to Proserpine for the weekend because she just needed to get away from Uni life and take a break. I also shared this need, so she said i was more than welcome to tag along. I finished my paper at like 3am friday morning, packed, and then went to bed around 4am so that I could wake up at 7:30 so that i'd have time to turn in a hardcopy, pick up a few things, and have breakfast before jeppo came to get me at 9. We rolled into prossy around 1pm and hit up the grocery to get some food because her parents had been/were still on holiday in New Zealand. We got some tim tams because they were on sale, some things for stir-fry, and a rotisserie style chicken that was delish! After we got home and unloaded the car, we set out the mattresses in front of the tv and turned on Step Brothers and then proceeded to have nap time until we had to get up and get ready for dinner at her nonna's house. We went to nonna's a little after 6 and she made us steak, salad, and gnocchi and man was dinner delicious! Plus Jeppo's nonna was just absolutely adorable. Jeppo's auntie was also at dinner with us and she was really sweet as well. Dinner was great and because Jeppo's nonna is the best she had dessert ready too. We had raspberry jelly (jello) with fresh mangoes and ice cream. A little different from what I'm used to, but still good. Having homemade food again was really nice, although, I'm sure my mom's cooking could get nonna's a run for her money. After dinner it was time to hit up the local establishments because jeppo's very attractive male cousin was going into town. Now, proserpine is a tiny town and basically it has one pub, and a few nights a month they open up the upstairs which is called "club met". I wasn't in the mood for going out and neither was jeppo, but we went because her cousin was keen. Going out was definitely a little awkward. Plus the fact that i was the only one who didn't know everyone else in the bar added to the discomfort. On the bright side, jeppo's cousin is one of the most obnoxious and hilarious drunks, so at least that provided some quality entertainment. After 2 somewhat excruciating hours of being semi introduced to people who didn't want to talk to me in a room that was entirely too loud, jeppo and i left to go back home and get some work done. 30 minutes later we went back to pick up her epically drunk cousin who was going to stay the night because he was in no right state to drive home. Well, that night was interesting to say the least because about 30 minutes after I had gone to bed owen (jeppo's cousin) tried to join me. Needless to say I told him to GTFO and when he tried to share the bed with me i left to go sleep on the couch. He felt bad about that, so luckily he went back to the family room and i got the bed to myself. Like i said, that night was filled with awkwardness. It was kind of funny though. Saturday morning owen left and katrina and i ended up getting very little homework done and taking more naps and watching more movies. She had to go to the doctor that day too because she hadn't been feeling well. Turns out she has a throat and respiratory infection as well as having her glandular fever flare back up. poor thing. so yes, lots more relaxing and resting, something that we both needed. Later that night we went to a rodeo to watch her cousin owen bull ride. It was SOOO much fun but made me really anxious. Owen got slammed up into the fencing of the ring by the bull and then thrown off and stepped on, but at least he qualified and was basically okay. There were a lot of other people getting beaten up by these bulls too. I don't think i've ever seen such angry animals before. But yes, jeppo and i just enjoyed from the bleachers and i dont think there could have been two people more out of place. we were both dressed in cute tops with flats. I at least had a pair of jeans on, but jeppo was wearing leggings. Everyone else was in jeans, boots, and plaid flanel. That was one of the funniest parts of the night. That and all of the odd country music they were playing. One song's chorus included the line "i want to check you for ticks". weird. And of course, they played Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy. We ended up leaving soon after Owen had ridden and we went to go see if he was okay. I think we got home around 8:30, at which point I got to call Daniel, my friend steph's brother who is the biggest sweety in the world to see if he wanted to come and hang out! Plus he is majorly cute, so that was a perk also. So yeah, daniel came over and we watched Anchorman, which is stupid but hilarious and we had some good chats. During the movie Katrina couldn't find her keys, so we interrupted watching to find them. Turns out she had accidentally locked them in her car and there were no spares, so she called her neighbor to help her break into the car. Luckily her neighbor seemed to be a straight up professional and the keys were retrieved successfully with no damage to her vehicle. Anyways, after that little fiasco it was pretty late and Daniel ended up staying the night. Thankfully he is not a super huge skeeze-bag like katrina's drunken cousin was and I didn't have to worry about late night intruders. It was really nice to hang out with daniel because he doesn't go to the university with us, hes busy having a real job and being a successful business owner at the age of 21. But yes, he is a really great guy. Sunday morning Jeppo and I were supposed to head back to her nonna's house before heading back to uni so that she could feed us a good lunch but there was a major wrench thrown into the plans in the form of a second car dilemma. Daniel went to go leave and his car wouldn't start and then we couldn't get it to go with jumper cables. Katrina ended up going to her nonna's while i stayed at her house with daniel to try to figure business out, but unfortunately it wouldn't go. on the way out we dropped him at red rooster so he could get some lunch, but we had to turn around after and come back because we had realized we had forgotten katrinas doctors note to excuse her from late penalties on assignments because of her health. Driving past we saw daniel walking back to katrina's with his lunch so he could wait there with his car, so we snagged him and gave him another ride back while we went for her note. By the time we left he still hadn't been picked up, and i dont know how long he had to wait before his dad could come and snag him. Definitely too many car issues this weekend. But yes, now I'm back safe in townsville after having a really nice weekend to unwind.

Casino Night! good, but not so good.

Last night a bunch of girls and I decided to hit up the Casino In Townsville and then meet up with a bunch of our pharmacy friends at the club Consortium, where their after Pharmacy Ball party was going to be happening. Turns out last night is the night I learned how much I hate casinos. Laura and I played blackjack, and the stupid thing is that you've got a $15 minimum bet. Well, we both played 3 hands and lost, and that was the end of my gambling. It wasn't even like vegas with free booze for gamblers or anything like that and if you want a drink they can't serve you at the tables, you have to get up and go to the bar to get it yourself. LAME. So yes, i lost $45 in less than 10 minutes. I had planned on winning $3000, but obviously lady luck was not on my side last night. After the casino we made the long walk back to consortium to hang with everybody. They were being VIPs upstairs, an area we weren't allowed in, so 3 of us decided to hit up Flynn's, the irish pub, to get cheaper drinks. Well, let me tell you it was PACKED in there and a lot of fun. Our night started off with this crazy guy named Lee coming up to us and flashing his wedding ring and asking if we were married. Obviously we all said no, but we asked him why he was advertising being married when it seemed like he was trying to pick up. Hilarious. Turns out hes married to an american from Georgia, and he kept talking about how australian men are lazy and they suck and they are really intimidated by how strong and vocal american women are. He then proceeded to tell us that if we wanted free drinks, all we had to do was go up to an aussie and say "Oi, by me a god damn drink". Of course, we tried our luck at this and ended up with some pretty good success! I didn't have to pay for any drinks while there!! Lee taught us how to play coins, its very similar to what we call quarters in the US, and then we had a good long chat about all sorts of things, including solar panels. Meanwhile, there was this creepy drunk fat man dancing with his corona in the background. I think I almost peed my pants laughing at his dancing, it was great. We got some other random guy to buy us a round of drinks and took a photo with him, and then eventually this younger guy sat down with us. He looked at me and immediate told me that I went to uni, lived at university hall, and specifically in the townhouses. I was a little weirded out that he knew all of this information, but he admitted that he saw me a lot during meals and lives on the second floor of the main building. So yes, less creepy. Should I be flattered? I'm not sure. But anyways, he turned out to be a nice guy and not creepy for the rest of the conversation, his name was Levi. After sufficient free drinks, we left and headed back to consortium for some dancing. This time we lied to the people at the front and said we were with pharmacy ball, so they gave us wristbands to get upstairs. HUZZAH! Eventually something or other happened and I guess I got upset and I left to go to the bus stop and have a nice long cry. While taking said good cry, a crazy aboriginal woman and two girls from uni came up to check if i was okay. I was okay, but just crying a lot. The aboriginal woman put her arm around me and told me all sorts of encouragement, and i think she was mildly inebriated. She yelled a lot of weird things too, but a lot of it had to do with aboriginal men having more than one wife and telling me that i shouldn't let boys bother me and that there was nothing wrong with me. Overall, andrea was quite nice, even if she seemed a bit crazy. Everybody soon showed up at the bus stop, but i didn't want to have anything to do with them, so i kept talking to the two chicks from uni who were also very sweet. i sat next to one of them on the bus and she provided some more emotional support now that i no longer had Andrea. LOL. During the busride I found that I REALLY had to pee, and by the time we got to our bus stop so i could go to my room i REALLY REALLY was about to explode. I booked it off the bus, because I had to pee so bad, I walked up the stairs, got to the outside door, put my key into the lock and....the door wont open. I tried frantically to open it but it just would not work. Turns out that sometime during the night my key somehow got demagnetized. Awesome. I was about to piss myself, but luckily Theresa let me in so I didn't have to pee in the bushes. I was hoping the key would still work on my room door, but of course, it didn't work there either. Somebody had to call an RA at 3am so that they could open my room. it sucked. So yes, that was my big friday night, parts could have been better, but i definitely enjoyed the little bit we spend at Flynn's.

Update on the keys: I went to shower this morning and accidentally closed the door so i was standing in the hall in my towel again. I had to ask my neighbor to call an RA for me because I couldn't get to my phone. obviously. I had to keep my door propped open all day until just around 2pm when the head of hall finally came in to give me a spare. Shit took forever, but at least I have some spare keys now and don't have to leave my door open so I don't get locked out.

Big Australian Adventure: Sunday

Sunday morning was another early morning. We went ziplining through the rainforest before being picked up for the ride back down to cairns at 1. let me tell you, zip lining is possibly one of the coolest things EVER. The guides for that were awesome and really funny, and they all gave us helmets (which had names on them) that they thought would go well/not go well with everybody's looks and personality. I got stuck with Hannah Montana. awesome. Anyways, we had to hike up some big hills and my calves were killing me, but it was well worth it. Some of the stations they had us go in pairs, and others we got to go solo. The best one was a zip line right over this river. They stopped us in the middle of that one and it was so great. It sort of feels like flying :) I took two of the zip lines upside down because I am baller and there are pictures, and even a video, to prove it! Zip lining definitely was way too short. I could've stayed up there all day long, even though it was raining a little bit. I will definitely be going again some day!! After zip lining we had a little bit of time to kill so lisa and I got some ice cream (overpriced, of course) and sat with caitlin while she ate a salad before heading down to the beach for a few last photos and another relaxing beach walk. The bus ride home wasn't nearly as exciting as the one on the way up. People were more tired, if that was possible, and we had a way less awesome bus driver who wasn't as energetic as Roddy. We stopped at three places on the ride back. The first was called Alexandria lookout. You were supposed to be able to overlook the rainforest and where the daintree river emptied into the ocean, but it was a pretty cloudy day so nobody got out to take pictures and we just sort of drove passed. If it was a clear day, it would have been breathtaking, but it was still pretty to see. The second was this big place called Mossman Gorge where we were supposed to be allowed to go swimming. Unfortunately, they said it had rained too much in the previous days and that the current was too fast, so we couldn't get in. But we were able to walk along the paths surrounding it and go up to the suspension bridge overlooking the river. Now, this would have been fine, except there were loads of other people swimming in the gorge. I was a little bit upset, but I guess its an insurance/safety thing because we were technically with a tour and they didn't want anybody going in and not coming back out. oh well. This place was also beautiful, sorry if you're tiring of hearing that, but Australia has A LOT of really beautiful things to see. Our final stop was a town along the way called Port Douglas. It is one of those places where the rich and famous go to play. We only had 30 minutes or so to walk around and check things out. There was this really cool hippie type shop, but everything was ungodly expensive so I didn't buy anything there. Instead, we walked down the street a little ways to get some gelato! After that it was a boring, rainy drive back to cairns. we didn't have anywhere to stay or put our stuff because our bus back was leaving at midnight, so we just kind of kicked in around town. the girls and I hit up a restroom to put on more acceptable clothes, fix up our hair, and throw on some perfume (because none of us had showered). After that we went to dinner and i checked out the night markets for some gifts. I got some nice earrings for my big sis, hopefully she likes them. If not, i have no problem with keeping them because I like them A LOT. Aleks bought some soap in hopes of showering, and then we headed over to the big community infinity pool right by the waters edge to try to find a shower. Well, turns out the man had starting cleaning the locker rooms out because it was 9pm and it was closing. Luckily he was in the middle of cleaning the mens, so he told us we had around 10 minutes. Aleks finally took her shower and the rest of us kind of just hung out while waiting. After that lovely experience, we went and sat by the water until the bus came, and that was that.

Big Australian Adventure: Saturday

Okay, day 2 our the epic adventure. Sorry this has taken so long to post. Anyways! Saturday morning we got picked up really early by a bus transporting us up to Cape tribulation. We got picked up sometime around 7:20 am and much to our lovely surprise, our bus driver/tour guide was absolutely FANTASTIC! He was this crazy, chubby guy probably in his mid to late 20s named Roddy. He had horribly scruffy facial hair, wore neon purple sunglasses, and had a lip ring. He joked around a lot as was a really cool guy and definitely made the drive up a lot of fun. On the way up we stopped at a little breakfast place for something to eat which made the BEST bacon and egg sandwiches on sesame seed buns. We eventually got to the daintree river, and at that point we got on a boat for a little crocodile tour while roddy took the van across on the ferry. We saw some epically huge crocs during this sweet little boat cruise. One of them they guessed was near 100 years old because all of his teeth had fallen out. His name was scarface and he had to club all of his prey to death with his head. After the short cruise we hopped back onto the bus and our next stop was the Daintree rainforest to take a little walk. WOW. This place was absolutely stunning. I learned a lot about all sorts of plants there, but my favorite thing was probably hearing about the mangroves. They live in really saline water, but the only way they can manage is by filtering all of the salt into one leaf called a sacrificial leaf, which then dies so the rest of the tree can live. CRAZY! Walking through the oldest rainforest in the world was definitely a surreal experience. It really was just completely awesome. I wish we would've been able to walk for more than the 45 minute we spent in there, but we had more places to go and things to see, so once again, we hopped on the bus to get dropped at our hostel. Our hostel was basically in the rainforest right at the edge of the beach. I got put in a separate room from everybody else, but it worked out okay because I got to meet some really cool people! plus, everybody else was just right next door or across the way if i needed anything. I had 4 roomies, a kid my age named michael from germany, a woman in her late 20s or early 30s from Ireland, and a really young couple from the netherlands. I got to hang out with michael a little bit, he was pretty cute and was the most stereotypical german ever. He said "yah" a lot. It was kind of silly. So yes, we took a lot of strolls along the beach, which was also so beautiful. You could see a lot of the forest covered hills and there were all of these really cool fallen/growing sideways giant trees that we took some cool pictures on. I only got in the water once, and only to my waist. It was kind of dirty with a lot of leaf litter and such, so i came out with all of this stuff stuck on my legs. So yes, a lot of time was just spent walking along the beach and chilling out. One of the coolest things about being up in the rainforest is all of the spontaneous 20-30 minute rain storms, and its great that it is a nice, warm rain. We got caught in one of these little downpours and just played around in it, skipped some rocks, and found some awesome shells. Later that night a bunch of people got really drunk and rowdy, even though this wasn't exactly a place to do that. I'm pretty sure most people go out there to connect with nature and enjoy the quiet. The people i was with weren't the LEAST bit quiet. They were wrestling out in the open porch between the rooms and yelling and screaming and I'm pretty sure one of them vomited right outside my window. I told my roomies I'd go talk to them, but they were thoroughly annihilated and beyond the point of being reasoned with. At one point Aleks started taunting me about how I was upset and she was just being really patronizing about the whole thing. So yes, eventually the Irish woman went out and told them to shut the F*** up. She said you know you're too drunk when an Irishwoman tells you to settle down. hahaha. she was great. She didn't want me to go out and talk to them because she didn't want bad blood between me and my friends. Honestly, half of those people I don't regularly hang out with so i could care less. they were being obnoxious and it was embarrassing. I think that just about covers everything, It was a pretty chill day overall.

Big Australian Adventure: Friday

So Cameron, lisa, scott, dan, grant, and myself left on the grey hound at 1am Friday morning to head up to Cairns and meet up with Aleks and Caitlin who had gone up the previous day. So yes, we got on the bus ridiculously early and none of us could sit next to one another because we were one of the last stops to pick people up at. I ended up making some woman move her crap so I could sit down because she was taking up two seats. I couldn't sleep the whole ride because it was horribly uncomfortable and there were also two older, smelly, women who were talking rather loudly that sat right behind me. One of them also kept breathing oddly, and it sounded kind of like creepy laughing mixed with labored breathing. I'm not really sure what was up with her, it was weird. There were also a few times when the woman directly behind me would put her hand on the headrest of my chair and grope my head. Once again, very weird and distracting when trying to fall asleep. We got into Cairns around 7am and had to check in at our boat in the marina at 8am for our day trip to the reef to SCUBA! Luckily for us the bus depot was a 5-10 minute walk from the marina so we took some time to find a bathroom to change and wash up before starting our day. We also went to the stops at the entrance to the marina for a little breakfast. I happened to be the smart one in the group and brought food along to limit my purchases, so i had some apples, bananas, and granola for breakfast while waiting for everybody to get their food and coffee. After all of that we had about 10 minutes to get to our boat, which happened to be in nearly the very last slip down the marina. We got there on time and hopped onto this HUGE pontoon-like mega-big sailboat. oh wait, did i mention that our trip got upgraded because the original boat we were on was down for maintenance? because it did! SCHWING! The professional photographer grabbed our picture and then we headed down to the cabin with all of our luggage and had some complimentary morning tea and biscuits! After tea we filled out some mandatory paperwork and then the boat set off for the 2 or so hour sail out to the reef. We all spent a lot of time sitting out on deck and checking out the gorgeous scenery and enjoying the sweet sunshine. Eventually they called everyone out to the deck for a explanation of the safety procedures, fire risks, where the life jackets where, and all that jazz. It ended up being really entertaining, the crew was great. At the point when they were talking about sea sickness the guy said that the instructions for the barf bags were conveniently printed right on the inside and that when you were finished to just throw the bag overboard, but to be mindful of the wind because Australia is the land of boomerangs, and what goes away has a silly tendency to come back at you. hahaha. During this talk they also mentioned that you could rent an underwater camera ( a nice one) for $50 for the entire day and they'd put all your pictures, along with some professional ones, on a CD for you. So, of course, I jumped on that opportunity. Lucky for me, everything thing else, aka gear hire and lunch, were already paid for so i was more than willing to spend the money on the camera. Although, i did have to rent a wetsuit for $8, but the lady couldn't figure out how to work the register so she just gave us them for free!! We landed off of a cay called Michaelmas Cay. Cam, grant, myself, and some girl from France were the only people on the boat that were certified divers, so we basically had a dive master all to ourselves! For our first dive we took a boat out to the beach on the Cay and started as a shore dive, so it was an easy one. We saw all sorts of awesome things, including my favorite, a sea turtle!! Our guide let us hold this huge, lumpy sea cucumber and showed us nemo hiding in a sea anemone along with heaps of other things. We also got to touch a giant clam to get it to snap shut. awesome! They really are quite beautiful, with all sorts of blues and purples along their mantle because of the symbiotic zooxanthellae that they house. The dive was nice, but visibility could have been a lot better. We kept kicking up the sand from the ocean floor. Speaking of which, i made the stupid mistake of leaving my fins at uni, so i had to borrow the not as nice ones from the boat which didnt come with booties or a heel strap. they were the lame rubbery ones that we used to use at swim practice and they were WAY too narrow for my feet. This meant that all of that sand floating around kept finding its way into my fins and chafing my poor feet, which really sucked. Anyways, after the dive it was time for lunch. They served an AMAZING spread. There was fish, garlic parmesan potatoes, rice, chicken wings, a large assortment of fresh fruits ( I tried passion fruit for the first time), a few different pasta salads, regular salad, prawns with the head and everything still attached, bread, and cold cut meat and cheese. It was so delicious and probably the best meal I've had since I've been in Australia. We all sat out in the sunshine on deck and ate and it was absolutely perfect. A little while after lunch the two boys and I suited up for our second dive. This time the french girl didn't come along because she didn't have the money to pay for a second dive, so it was just the three of us, plus another boat employee so i'd have a diving buddy. We went out to a reef called Coral Gardens that was absolutely stunning. Visibility here was better because there wasn't really sandy sediment because it was all coral everywhere. I don't think I've seen so many different beautiful coral formations in my life, it was absolutely breathtaking. I just wish the colors you see when your down there transfer better in pictures. Oh well. Anyways, we saw some more cool fish and on this one we even saw.....SHARKS! Two, to be exact. White tipped reef sharks. They were awesome and I got pretty dang close to one, I'd say within 10 feet. SO cool!!!! Even though we didn't see any turtles on this dive it was definitely my favorite. This dive didn't last that long and we had to fight the current a bit, but afterwards we hopped back into the little boat to bring us back to the main boat for the sail back. I dropped off my digicam to get my pictures put into CD format and then the lot of us went up to chill some more on the deck and take in the rays. After it got a little chilly we made our way back into the cabin where they served us complimentary champagne while one of the crew members was kickin' it on his acoustic guitar playing some jack johnson and some other sweet tunes. Talk about a perfect day. After we got back to town we headed for our hostel, Gilligan's, and checked into our room. Because there were 8 of us together we fit perfectly into one room, which was awesome. I decided to take a shower because i was feeling filthy and most everybody else decided to start smashing the booze. It was roughly 6pm. Once i got out of the shower I realized the girls had gone to buy alcohol, the guys were already boozing, and there was a random piece of coral in the sink being run under hot water. Turns out dan had ripped a large coral off of the reef and brought it back, and was now killing it via thermal stress in the sink. I was pretty irritated about that, seeing as he took it from a protected wildlife preserve. What a d-hole. but yes, after all that lisa, caitlin, and I did a little shopping before meeting up with everyone for dinner at Cactus Jack's. After dinner it was back to the room, I laid down in bed right away and was ready to sleep because I was exhausted. It wasn't even 10pm yet, and all the guys really wanted to go out. Only 2 of them ended up going and everybody kind of just went to bed. We had to be up early saturday because our bus was picking us up at 7:25am to take us up to cape tribulation.

SO TIRED

So the past few days/weeks have been pretty hectic. I've been having lab reports, papers, and photography assignments due nearly non-stop. Also, I had my first test today, a midsemester exam, for my invertebrate biology class. Needless to say I had been studying A TON for the past two days trying to cram in all of that information, because believe you me, there is sooooo much information and they want so much detail. I think the test went pretty well, actually. It was 5 short essay questions and one longer essay question. I definitely rocked 3 of the 5 short answers, one of them i had no idea about (the one question i looked at while studying and was like, ''oh, this might be on the test'' but didn't actually go over), and the other I had to semi-bullshit because I couldn't think straight, so i think that one i'll get at least partial credit. As for the longer essay, I'm pretty sure I snagged full marks.

This will be my first weekend where I don't actually have mandatory work to do that needs to be ready for monday, so i've decided to take advantage and head up to cairns with some of my buddies from GR. Unfortunately, I do have a very large research paper due next friday that i have no desire to do, but i'm trying to start it now to get it at least partially done. so far no such luck, i am tired from previous nights of studying. I know for sure it wont get done this weekend or even friday or monday, seeing as my bus leaves friday at 1am and gets back here monday at 5am. let me remind you, i have 5 hours of class straight on mondays. excellent. I will be an even more tired girl.

but anyways, I'm super excited for Cairns. We're getting in at 6am friday morning and then later in the day we've got SCUBA planned!! Cam, grant, and I are all certified and we're doing a 2 tank dive while the other kids do a beginner dive (which doesnt require cert.) and then a snorkel. Ours is only $50 more expensive, and all of our gear is included. I think it came out to $200 or $250 overall for 2 tank dive, boat charter, gear, lunch, etc. Pretty good deal! The next day we're taking a bus up to cape tribulation into the daintree rainforest and i think we're doing some tours or something and staying at this really nice rainforest cabin place. AND we're going to zipline. I am really stoked for that too!

So far that is the plan, wish me luck on the paper and I will update after what is sure to be an incredible weekend!

Battle scars

So far its been a pretty eventful past few days. I went to a classy cocktail party on saturday and had LOADS of fun. After hanging out there during the day I made it back to my dorm around 8pm because everyone was schwasted as it started at 2:30pm. I got to spend the rest of the night with some cool kids at my dorm playing some card games and some uno, which surprisingly I didn't win. Oh well. At one point I ate an entire family share pack of tim tams which was NOT a good idea. For those of you who don't know, that is 20 1.5x2.5x.5 inch very rich chocolatey cookies. Needless to say I had to remove those from my system and ended up getting hit in the face by a tree while walking through a shrubby/woodsy area to take care of things. This was how I obtained my first battle scar of the evening which appears as an inch long very red scratch right below my right eye. classy.

My second..and third and fourth battle scars came this evening at water polo. A lot of new people came this week which was really really exciting! There was even another girl who showed up that plays for the australian national team. Anyways, there is this guy from france who they call "frenchie" and he is a beast. He throws his shots so hard that I was terrified to be in goal to block his shots, thank god he hits post a lot. But anyways, I was guarding him during a drill and he jacked me in the face pretty hard. That hurt a lot. I don't think I'll get any bruising and my nose doesn't seem to be broken, but things are a little red so far. We also play this game to determine who gets ball possession for half court play. They call it underwater rugby, and as you can imagine, it is basically a free-for-all of people jumping on one another in the shallow end and trying to grab the ball which is to be moved across the pool underwater and then touched to the pool deck on the other side to score a point. I can feel a large bruise developing on one of my thighs and I have various grab marks on my forearms. This game was AWESOME. But yeah, the people at water polo are great! They are really funny and huge goofballs and I have a lot of fun when I'm there. They asked me to come and play some touch rugby this wednesday because they need some more girls to play. Should be a good time!

And for now I'm back to getting my homework done so I can go out tomorrow on cheap tuesday!