Commencement / Recovery Week

Hey! So I haven't updated in a while... and heaps has happened. Last friday night IH had a big commencement dinner (big dinner where head of college gives a speech and we find out who was elected into positions). I wore my aussie friend's baby blue "safari" suit. Classy. It was held at Shortland Union on campus, but was actually really nice - 3 course catered meal, DJ, dance floor, and open access to GT Bar which has a really cool balcony/deck area. After the dinner everyone caught a free bus into town for the pubs. All the pubs were ridiculously overcrowded and had fog machines turned on full blast, so I caught the 2:17 bus back.

The guys before Commencement:


And the ladies:

Mali, Me and Annika:


The next day was "Recovery Day" - which I assumed was a day everyone chills by the pool, sleeps off the night before. Oh no. Apparently recovery to Aussie's means waking up at 9am, going to the hall for a barbie of amazing bacon and egg sandwiches, and washing it down with more alcohol. I'm fairly sure everyone woke up still feeling the night before and needed just 1 drink to cap it off. So after brekkie I headed back to the fridge for my goon sack, and returned to the pool where pretty much everyone was chilling/swimming/dancing cuz they had a DJ spinning some pretty sick remixes. At 12pm, a few of us decided to do power hour - so we headed back to the apt. above mine. Word got out and when we started, there must have been over 50 people crowded into this tiny living room, which we had brought in a picnic table for extra space. An hour later, everyone emerged and bombarded the pool since it was sweaty and hot in there... the rest of the afternoon was spent at the pool of goon. Surprisingly no one was killed and I only cut up my foot. Everyone took a quick nap, woke up around dinner and continued to "recover." Around 11 we decided to find the only sober person - Ellen, to drive us to Hungry Jacks. Best idea. So all in all, recovery in aussie terms means a lot more fun than I was expecting.

The theme of Recovery day which we got shirts for - "I'd rather be a liver than have one..."


Frank's amazing new haircut:

Dance party :


Ursula and I in the pool:


IH's pool :


My roommate Bec :
Clare (taking me camping!) :



Here's a vid of the pool party:



Here's another, featuring the most over-played song in Australia by Pot Belly's - Dont Hold Back :




Then it was the sad realization of school the next day. It was the last week before Easter break (which I'm on now!) so I had a lot of group meetings and work to do. Learned that Aussie's only use 1 space after their periods... how many does everyone else use? I was always taught to use 2.. weird. And the group meetings... when they say meet at 11, they really mean 11:40 - that has happened to me 3 x's now.

It's thursday night, spent the day at Nobby's beach with Lucy, then went to fill up my roommate's car with petrol cuz he went on a PO (pacific ocean) cruise for 2 weeks and left his car with me... what a nut! Anyways, cost me $80 to fill up his station wagon.... wow. And they fill up by the litre, not the gallon. (The litre is less). And their signs read it full cents... so the sign read 148 - I was like holy shit 148 for a litre of gas?? Noo, 148 cents.... weird. But they don't use 1 cent pieces here, so anywhere you go, they round up to the nearest 5 cents (their smallest coin). So in shops they still have weird prices like $2.98, but instead of paying that, they'll round it up to $3 and you get jipped off (no tax). Orrr if its $3.02, it's only $3 - dunno how they work it out but sometimes it's in your favor and sometimes its not. They say "it all comes out in the wash" - meaning it evens out in the end.

I just spent about 4 hours watching TV and talking with Eric, my korean roommate. What a champ - he speaks broken english but I can understand him pretty well. Dunno how he is taking IT classes taught in english here. He asks me a lot for help with his work and I coudln't be more happy to help.. like last night he had to do citations, and he couldn't figure out which was the author's surname (last name) or first name, since you spell out the last and only abbreviate the first. Whenever we talk, he just asks questions about America or the english language... it's pretty cool being able to answer the stuff he reallly wants to know but says he doesn't feel comfortable asking anyone else. Tonight we talked about how his younger sister got plastic surgery to make her eyes slightly bigger in Korea, and how most women have this surgery. He said it's verrry superficial over there. The first thing people look at is your height (taller is better), then your face (if you're ugly he says people shun you and you have to walk with your head down), then your body (hardly anyone is fat), then your job and how much money you make. I told him that's pretttty similar to America.

Korea, South of course, seems like a pretty cool place from what he says. Girls cover their chest with their hands when they bend over to pick up something, and when walking up steps they cover their backside with a handbag. Girls and guys can't really touch in public and dating is pretty rough... he said American's come over and teach english and earn mucho dinero. He showed me some of his english books with Korean written next to it, pretty fascinating. Eric also offered me to come visit him and stay with his family - could you see me in Korea next?? HAHA, I extended the offer to him (don't worry mom and dad, or melissa.. lol he's a nice guy).

Anyways, tomorrow I'm off to Narromine to go camping at Clare's farm! I'm stoked, there's 9 of us going 5 hours west into the bush. Should be a fun easter. Definitely different than what I'm used to. Better grab some sleep. Happy easter to everyone!!!